🌱 CROSSING TERRITORIES: COMMON ROUTES - What emerged from our first exchange

Our first session brought together initiatives from across Africa and the Mediterranean to start a collective conversation around soils, territories, and the communities connected to them.

Through the Mentimeter reflections, a shared picture started to emerge. Across different territories, participants pointed to soil degradation, desertification, climate change, and water scarcity as some of the main pressures affecting communities today. Many also highlighted the difficulty of responding to these challenges, with communities often feeling only partially prepared to face the scale of environmental and social changes taking place.

The discussions also brought forward deeper questions around governance, participation, and whose voices are included when decisions about land are made. When reflecting on Soil Democracy, participants identified political and governance challenges as a key dimension shaping the future of territories, while highlighting that rural communities, small-scale farmers, women, youth, refugees, and other groups are often among those most affected and least heard.

The conversation also explored how rangelands are often misunderstood as degraded or empty spaces, while in reality they are living territories shaped by seasonal practices, collective access arrangements, and long-standing relationships between communities and the land.

Throughout the exchange, one message continued to resonate: communities that are deeply connected to the land need to be at the center of conversations about its future. This reflection continued through the Soil Democracy Debate, where it was highlighted that small-scale farmers, women, and young people should have a stronger voice in governing land and territories, given their direct relationship with these spaces and the knowledge they hold.

The conversation continues … in your opinion:

💬 Who should have the strongest voice in governing land and territories?

Share your perspective, bring an example from your territory, and join the discussion here:

👉 https://commons.soiltribes.eu/assemblies/routesroots/f/75/debates