Iran is a vulnerable country to desertification and soil degradation and to respond to this problem, some laws and regulations such as Act on Soil Protection Act, as well as institutional arrangements for environmental protection and soil preservation, have been initiated. However, the efficiency of these instruments in building an effective soil governance system is disputable. This chapter intends to exercise the legal challenges of Iran in soil protection governance. To do so it firstly considers the state of soil degradation and protection in Iran and then examines the development of soil protection governance in its legal system. This chapter, emphasizing on the contribution of institutional efficiency and legal enforcement in soil governance, concludes that Iran’s legal system faces with a body of legal, institutional and social obstacles in development and improvement of soil protection governance pillars, i.e. integrated instruments and cross-sectoral collaboration in multilevel protection.
