Reclamation - restoring disturbed lands

Syntropic agriculture (agroforestry) practices can help with adding organic matter and keeping the soil covered, even on a backyard scale. Prune trees/bushes/whatever and use that as mulch. In temperate climates, the largest pruning would be in the autumn, after trees have started to go dormant, and this pruned material would provide additional soil cover around the trees over the winter, even helping to protect young trees' roots from frost damage.