The Galician Act on the Recovery of Agrarian Land (Law 11/2021, of May 14 2021) establishes the general framework in Galicia for the management of agroforestry land, its uses, the fight against land abandonment and the promotion of land recovery, in order to put the already abandoned lands back into productive use. This piece of legislation also aims at facilitating access to land for people who wish to start an economic activity in a depopulated rural area. The Galician Act on the Recovery of Agrarian Land has been passed by the Galician regional Parliament of Galicia in May 2021. It has been published by the Official Journal of the Galician Regional Parliament on 12th May 2021. It has been published by the Official Journal of Galicia on 21st May 2021. It is a piece of law in full force since 22nd May 2021.Its provisions are fully enforceable now and will remains so for as long as the Galician legislative body doesn’t decide otherwise.

The main objective of this legislation is to fight against the abandonment and under-use of land and to ensure farmers that need it have appropriate access to land, while trying to prevent fires and, more broadly, contribute to demographic recovery and better quality of life for rural population. 

Indeed, the proper management of agricultural land is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, the objectives of the EU Green Deal and those of the European Climate Pact. Furthermore, guaranteeing the competitiveness of farmers and the resilience of local and regional food systems is essential to ensure food security.

Article 7 of the legislation provides that yearly Action Plan for the Land Recovery are established by the Galician Rural Development Agency, which includes actions aimed at the recovery of agricultural land. 

Through Down to Earth, the Galician Rural Development Agency aims to gain valuable experience and ideas from best practices across Europe, that will feed into new projects for the implementation of the instruments of the Act. Improvements in the overall management of the instruments are also expected.  Special attention will be paid to how to promote projects to support New Entrants, young people and women. 

The policy instrument covers 15 municipalities, 1 urban and 14 rural areas, and aims to draft a common development strategy for the territories involved to improve the situation of both areas by establishing connections and developing projects together. It seeks to tackle the following challenges:

• Agriculture and land management: the entrepreneurial structure of the urban area shows a high number of micro and small businesses with a predominance in the agricultural sector. Due to climate change effects, the area has a landslide hazard rate of 30.50%, also mainly due to the process of abandonment of agricultural lands. Furthermore, the percentage of municipalities with high seismic class is very high.
• Depopulation: regarding the depopulation process affecting the strategy area and in general the whole Molise Region, one big impact is caused by the youth employment percentage that in the 15 municipalities is around 30.55% while in Italy it is equal to 36.3%.

Therefore, the following objectives – closely connected to the topics of the project – have been established:

• Support the competitiveness of the local enterprises in rural areas and promote entrepreneurship also in agriculture.
• Improve the efficiency and the quality of the public services in rural areas also thanks to digitalization processes.
• Strengthen the knowledge and skills of partner administrations on strategic planning models applicable to the vast area identified.

Down to Earth will allow the will the acquisition of new knowledge that can improve the policies and actions that the Municipality of Campobasso is implementing as part of its urban development strategy,

Adopted in 2018, the current Sustainable Development Strategy of Romania promotes the sustainable development of the country by focusing on the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental. It is citizen-centred and focuses on innovation, optimism, resilience, and the belief that the role of the state is to serve the needs of each citizen in a fair, efficient, and balanced manner, all within a clean environment. It represents the "lighthouse" that guides the implementation of the 2030 Agenda of the UN in all sectoral policies that can promote sustainable development at the national level, establishing objectives until 2030. 

Romania’s Sustainable Development Strategy is based on the premise that sustainable development requires a mindset which, once adopted by citizens, will help create a more equitable society defined by: balance and solidarity, and the ability to cope with the changes brought about by current global, regional and national challenges, including a declining population. The state’s concern for its citizens, and the citizens’ respect for public institutions, for their peers, for moral values, and for cultural and ethnic diversity will lead to a sustainable society. 

The Strategy seeks to strengthen Romania's ability to adapt and build resilience against the risks posed by climate change and natural disasters. This involves closely monitoring the effects of climate change, including socio-economic vulnerabilities, and integrating adaptation measures into various strategies and sectoral development policies. The Strategy emphasizes the importance of aligning these efforts across sectors to create synergies and identifies specific measures to adapt critical sectors that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. 

Among its objectives, the strategy aims to develop a sustainable and competitive agri-food sector to enhance quality of life and ensure living conditions in rural areas, support the promotion of local and ecological production and capitalise on value-added traditional products. 

The priority measure for the agricultural sector is to improve the level of agricultural productivity, considering environmental factors (air, water, soil quality, biodiversity), by eliminating the main limiting factors of production yield: fragmentation of agricultural land and lack of cooperation between farmers, level of training of farmers, low capitalization, clearly indefinite professional status of the farmer, the level of technological endowment of farms. 

The Strategy will benefit from Down to Earth knowledge transfer and good practices identified during the project, which will lead to recommendations for the update of the following objectives of the current strategy:

• GOAL 2: ZERO HUNGER/ Agricultural production
• GOAL 13: CLIMATE ACTION.

The experience gained throughout the project will increase Romania’s capacity to adapt to current and potential effects of climate change in rural areas. 

The Regional Plan Neckar-Alb contains specifications regarding the land use and infrastructure of settlements, the spatial distribution of cities and towns, open spaces, natural resources and train routes in the Neckar-Alb region among others. It also has a pillar regarding natural protection. This plan is the legal instrument that takes the development goal of the national level and adapts it to a regional level. The development of the 66 cities and towns of the region needs to be aligned with the specifications of the plan. Since 2022, the Regional Association Neckar-Alb is involved in an obligatory national planning task. According to that, 2 % of the land area must be designated for the production of renewable energy, of which 1.8 % for wind turbines and 0.2 % for photovoltaic systems.

The Regional Association Neckar-Alb is working on this task since the end of 2022 and we do see an important link with the Down to Earth project. This is about the innovation regarding renewable energy in the rural areas combined with the modernization of the areas and the development of policies to promote a living in the rural areas. The Regional Plan will be updated in the coming years and the results of the project will have a direct impact on the region and on the development of the most important planning instrument for the region .

The Regional ESIF Operational Programme “Dytiki Ellada 2021-2027", comprises several strategic axes, aiming to ensure regional development and the improvement of the quality of life of its citizens.  

Under Policy objective 2, the Regional ESIF Operational Programme aims to address the following challenges: 

• protection of natural and cultural environment,
• the continuation of interventions in flood protection and coastal protection projects, as well as protection against natural disasters,
• monitoring the impact of Climate Change,
• improving the adequacy of civil protection equipment,
• awareness and training of human resources. 

The instrument focuses on “Protecting the natural environment, tackling and adapting to climate change, strengthening energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening energy self-sufficiency and the circular economy". Under the specific objective RSO 2.4 “Promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention, resilience, taking into account ecosystem-based approaches (ERDF)”. Τhe following intervention areas are considered. 

• Intervention category 058. Adaptation measures to climate changes, prevention and management of risks related to climate: floods, and landslides including ecosystem services, (ERDF allocation: 11,05 million EUR). 
• Intervention category 059. Adaptation measures to climate changes, prevention and management of risks related to climate: fires, including ecosystem services (ERDF allocation: 1,7 million EUR). 
• Intervention category 060. Αdaptation measures to climate changes, prevention and management of risks related to climate: other hazards, e.g. storms and drought (ERDF allocation: 1,7 million EUR). 

Through the results of regional analyses regarding the climate vulnerability of the geographical areas of the Region of Western Greece, there immediate and long-term effects of climate change in different environmental aspects, in the economic and social activity of the Region were assessed. For this purpose, the initiatives foreseen in this SO are crucial for the future of the Region. 

Under Policy Objective 5, the specific objective RSO5.2. Support for integrated and inclusive economic, social and environmental local development of culture, natural heritage, sustainable tourism and security of areas outside urban areas (ERDF) is directly related to Down to Earth.

The processes of learning and exchange of know-how enabled by Down to Earth  will contribute to improved targeted funding calls under this Instrument, and eventually the revision of the instrument itself

Regional development program's for Gorenjska region 2021-2027(RDP) main objective is to harmonize the development goals of the development region in the field of economic, social, educational, public health, spatial and environmental and cultural development in the region and to assess the instruments and resources for their implementation. RDPs are prepared at the level of the development region, which is a territorial unit of NUTS 3l, the area of the Gorenjska development region includes 18 municipalities. In the priority development of countryside the topics of importancy of farming production and preservation of biodiversity is mentioned, while connection between climate change and farming/preservation of production of cultural crops/biodiversity is not addressed yet. Additionally the specific challenges of climate change in connection with the specific issues of countryside is not included yet (draught, floods…).