Over the past ten years WOCAT has been carried out through national and regional initiatives in countries interested in using the WOCAT tools for the documentation, evaluation and exchange of knowledge on sustainable land management (SLM). Significant progress has been made in documenting SLM Technologies and Approaches. Besides, efforts have been undertaken to map the extent and effectiveness of conservation measures at national and local scales showing where water, soil and vegetation are used sustainably (-> spatial assessment). Recent requests, e.g. by the 2010BIP 'Biodiversity Indicators Partnership Project'  , indicate that there is also a need to present a global overview (the original objective of WOCAT!) of achievements in preventing and combating degradation, besides the more detailed mapping WOCAT activities at (sub)country level.

In collaboration with FAO, WOCAT is involved in a global mapping project by request of the CBD-2010 BIP. The aim of this project is to create a global map of SLM, showing also the impact of SLM practices on ecosystem services.

The map below is a first rough draft of how SLM achievements could be presented. It shows examples of SLM technologies in three main categories*: agronomic (e.g. minimum tillage), vegetative / management (e.g. grass strips, agroforestry, enclosure), and structural measures (e.g. terraces). The map also illustrates in which countries SLM technologies have already been presented in the WOCAT database (orange countries) and where preliminary data is available (yellow countries).