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The 5th International Conference on Land Degradation held at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, Italy in September 2008 brought together some 100 people from 37 countries worldwide. A number of international organisations, like FAO, IAEA, EC, and CIHEAM were also present. The conference was split into 8 sessions where 83 papers (43 oral) were presented. In total 235 abstracts were received. The main outcome was that the fight against land degradation and desertification could be successful if the right policy instruments are put in place and most importantly when local people are both authors and actors of the development process. Moreover, soil conservation and restoration should be one component of an integrated ecosystem management strategy that should include also water, biodiversity, livelihoods and human impacts on ecosystems. There are numerous positive results when dealing with land degradation worldwide. They should be used to emphasise the urgent needs for further actions to accelerate and scale up progress and not to induce complacency. Improved land resources management measures should build on scientific evidence, local innovation and knowledge and be locally tested and validated before being applied at larger scale. Natural resource base conservation should continue to be a priority for national governments and international organisations but Africa requires particular attention. The recent financial, economic and food global crisis should not overshadow the urgent needs to deal with natural resource management and conservation and mitigate climate change impacts.

Six areas developed on metamorphic and igneous parent materials were selected in Murcia Province (SE Spain), two from diabases, two from mica schist and two from andesites. Three of them potentially polluted by anthropogenic sources and the other three no polluted. One profile and 6 surface samples were collected from each one in order to identify the Pb and Zn concentrations bounded to different soil phases using sequential extraction and to verify if the existent differences in Pb and Zn concentrations from soils developed on the same parent material are the consequence of the anthropogenic activities, or natural geochemical contributions. The results showed that the soils that present higher total Pb and Zn concentrations that come from anthropogenic sources registered higher percentages of these heavy metals in the most labile phases (exchangeable and organic matter bounded heavy metals). In addition, the carbonate phase is also an important sink of metals, however in soils developed on metamorphic and igneous rocks this constituent is very low due to organic and exchangeable phases that retain these metals. This behaviour increases the risk of mobility to trophic chain to plants and microorganisms that may absorb these metals.