A EU-funded research in the framework of the International Year of Forests, the LEDDRA project, points out that using the biomass of abandoned areas and farms that respect the conservation of resources helps provide and maintain work and income for people living in these areas. The research focuses in fighting against desertification in dry forests and agricultural lands that dot the Mediterranean region and China.

The LEDDRA ('Land and ecosystem degradation and desertification: assessing the fit of responses') project, an effort that fuels the initiative of the International Year of Forests, is backed with almost €3.1 million under the Environment Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). According to the researchers, efforts to suppress the process by which land becomes increasingly arid until no vegetation grows will effectively bolster economic development and create jobs in rural areas.

The project partners are using an integrated methodology to deal with and respond to environmental, socioeconomic and institutional conditions that contribute to or detract from sustainable land management and societal welfare. The team is also assessing the associated costs and benefits to diverse stakeholders, barriers to and opportunities for adoption, and knowledge transfer processes.

Specific areas being evaluated by the LEDDRA project are found in China, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal and Spain. The partners have already found that highly intensive agricultural practices, based on chemical agriculture, lead to soil degradation and speed up the loss of soil. In addition, using various strategies to protect the soil and increase the quality of soil and water would be advantageous for these regions. Among the strategies proposed by LEDDRA project, there are to protect the areas are preventing overgrazing, maintaining traditional irrigation, following a type of agriculture based on recycled organic matter and ensuring that no urbanisation takes place on agricultural and forest lands.