The Global Database on Sustainable Land Management (SLM) of WOCAT (the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies) provides free access to the documentation of field-tested SLM data including SLM practices and maps from different places in the world and offers practitioners the opportunity to share their own SLM practice or map.
SLM in the context of WOCAT is defined as the use of land resources - including soil, water, vegetation and animals - to produce goods and provide services to meet human needs, while ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and sustaining their environmental functions.
The objective of documenting and assessing SLM practices is to share and spread valuable knowledge in land management, support evidence-based decision-making and scale up identified good practices, thereby contributing to preventing and reducing land degradation and to restoring degraded land.
A SLM practice can be either an SLM Technology (a physical practice that controls land degradation and/or enhances productivity, consisting of one or several measures) or an SLM Approach (ways and means used to implement one or several SLM Technologies, including technical and material support, stakeholder engagement, and other).
Credits for the translation of the WOCAT Questionnaires and Database go to:
- Russian: Olga Andreeva (Associate Professor Moscow Lomonosov State University), Julia Johnson (Translator)
- Spanish: Pedro Charles Alborno (Translator)
- French: Barbara de Choudens (Translator)
- Lao: National Agriculture and Forestry Institute (NAFRI) Lao PDR
- Khmer: Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) Cambodia
- Chinese: Mr. Sun Guoji, Director General of Department of Combating Desertification, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, China
- Thai: Dr. Bunjirtluk Jintaridth and Mr. Kamchai Kanjanatanaseth, Land Development Department (LDD), Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Thailand; Dr. Pitayakon Limtong, Soil and Fertilizer Society of Thailand
Please contact the WOCAT Secretariat (wocat@cde.unibe.ch) if you are interested in translating the Questionnaires or the Global SLM Database into another language or further information about WOCAT.
