According to property rights theory, national plant genetic resources (PGRs) are sovereign properties rather than resources belonging to the common heritage of humankind. Consequently, provider states can claim compensation from users of their national PGRs, leading to the need for bilateral or multilateral agreements to share national PGRs' commercial benefits. However, as benefit-sharing agreements are made exante, estimating the potential profit is difficult. Thus, issues around asymmetric information about the commercial value of such resources have emerged.

Recent preoccupations regarding possible negative effects of pollution, inappropriate land management, climate change, desertification, erosion, compaction or over-exploitation on soils has led to initiatives for the survey of soils. One of them, EcoFINDERS, launched a pan-European survey in order to define normal operating ranges for soil biodiversity and quality, through the use of several methodologies.

Leymus chinensis is a dominant grass species in the Inner Mongolia steppes owing to its high vegetative productivity, good palatability for cattle, and abundant horizontally creeping rhizomes. Drought is generally regarded as one of the main environmental issues that is becoming a daunting challenge to the growth of plants, and ultimately results in land degradation.