The LIFE external monitoring team (NEEMO) has just published a thematic report entitled LIFE and Land Stewardship: Current status, challenges and opportunities. In this report to the European Commission, the authors assess the contribution made by the LIFE programme in engaging private stakeholders in nature conservation.

The analysis of LIFE projects found that Spain has been particularly active in applying land stewardship agreements, whilst the UK has the most experience with land trusts that manage many sites of importance. According to the report’s authors, land stewardship has great potential to be more widely used as a practical tool for biodiversity conservation. Their aim is to help inspire the uptake of land stewardship practices on a much wider scale, and to promote the adoption of available land stewardship mechanisms.

This report is particularly timely, as land stewardship is now being actively debated in the EU. The LandLife project, which finished in 2014, has helped to promote the importance of land stewardship across Europe, and the LandLife partners, including Eurosite, hope to continue this work through a European Land Stewardship Network. This year also saw the publication of a study on Alternative Ways to Support Private Land Conservation and on 19-21 October the First Annual Congress of the International Land Conservation Network took place in Berlin.

Download the full report from the LIFE website.