Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals requires drylands sustainability.Treating drylands as global environmental commons enables better tailored governance responses. Key nested governance elements for drylands involve setting goals, monitoring and delivering sanctions across scales. The present…

Given current land degradation trends, Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN, SDG Target 15.3) by 2030 could be difficult to attain. Solutions to avoid, reduce, and reverse land degradation are not being implemented at sufficiently large scales, pointing to land governance as the main obstacle. In this…

UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2020-5th edition The report emphasizes the role of nature-based solutions – locally-appropriate actions that address societal challenges, such as climate change, and provide human well-being and biodiversity benefits by protecting, sustainably managing and restoring…

Migration and land processes have numerous connections. Migration involves different origins and destinations, can be rural or urban, national or international, and can consist of different groups of peoples moving for different reasons and over different timespans. This diversity results in complex…

Land journal Special Issue "Collaboration and Multi-Stakeholder Engagement in Landscape Governance and Management in Africa: Lessons from Practice" Understanding the social and environmental impacts of multiple drivers of global and local change in Africa requires systemic and longitudinal place…

Land degradation includes many processes which singly or together reduce the quality of the land surface. The processes include soil erosion by wind, water and mass movements, salinization, acidification and soil sealing. These processes result in the loss of fertility, the loss of areas available…

Land, and its various bio-physical complexities, is an essential life-supporting system, critical for human survival and wellbeing. Unfortunately, a substantial amount of land and associated resources have undergone degradation mainly due to human activities such as urbanization, industrialization…

Land degradation – the reduction or loss of the productive potential of land – is a global challenge. Over 20% of the Earth’s vegetated surface is estimated to be degraded, affecting over 1.3 billion people, with an economic impact of up to US$10.6 trillion. Land degradation reduces agricultural…

Food system innovations will be instrumental to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, major innovation breakthroughs can trigger profound and disruptive changes, leading to simultaneous and interlinked reconfigurations of multiple parts of the global food system. The…

Thirty years ago, UNDP created a new way to conceive and measure progress. Instead of using growth in GDP as the sole measure of development, we ranked the world’s countries by their human development: by whether people in each country have the freedom and opportunity to live the lives they value…

Each year, the Emissions Gap Report assesses the gap between anticipated emissions and levels consistent with the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming this century to well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C. The report finds that in 2019 total greenhouse gas emissions, including land-use…

The New WBCSD report launched yesterday aims to help remove the hurdles to nature-based solutions by clarifying definitions, while supporting the alignment of natural climate solutions (NCS) with nature-based solutions (NbS) in order to accelerate investments at scale. In addition, the report helps…

The arrival of the rains leaves the drylands hit harder than richer areas. Once again, climate change sows injustice. − Not even the climate can be even-handed. When the rains come they leave the world’s drylands hit harder: the wealthier fare better and the poorest get relatively a little poorer…

Healthy soils are crucial for productive agriculture and a thriving environment. Around the world, soils face pressure from practices that result in land degradation. On December 5, 2020 the Soil Quality Mobile App (SQAPP) officially launches, bringing soil quality analysis to your smartphone SQAPP…

Resetting the future of food is possible and with this aim, the Barilla Foundation and Food Tank presented concrete solutions to rethink our food systems from farm to fork. The event highlighted the critical role of farmers in feeding the world and managing natural resources; food business in…

More than 32 million of the world’s poorest people face being pulled back into extreme poverty because of COVID-19, leading UN economists said on Thursday, highlighting data showing that the pandemic is likely to cause the worst economic crisis in decades among least developed countries (LDCs)…

We depend on soil for food, water, energy and recreation. Soil also protects us from climate change and boosts biodiversity. Yet this precious resource continues to be degraded by human activities. There are however several LIFE projects that are protecting what lies beneath our feet. The EU is…

What does it mean for a food and agriculture company to be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Despite growing corporate sustainability efforts, the answer to this question remains unclear. Companies, investors, consumers, and citizens continue to face challenges in understanding…

Intensifying water constraints threaten food security and nutrition. Thus, urgent action is needed to make water use in agriculture more sustainable and equitable. Irrigated agriculture remains by far the largest user of freshwater, but scarcity of freshwater is a growing problem owing to increasing…

The failure to protect the people most vulnerable to climate change is especially alarming given the steady increase in the number of climate and weather-related disasters. According to the World Disasters Report, the average number of climate and weather-related disasters per decade has increased…

The International Conference on Drylands, Deserts and Desertification (DDD) has emerged as an important global gathering of scientists, practitioners, industry and government representatives and decision-makers, members of CSOs, NGOs, and international development aid agencies and other stakeholders…

The European Commission published, on Thursday 5 November, the roadmap for the new EU strategy to combat soil degradation and preserve land resources. Scheduled for the second quarter of 2021, this update of the current strategy is part of the EU’s broader biodiversity strategy for 2030.

Climate change, environmental degradation and disasters do not affect everyone equally; gender, age, ethnicity, and income level, among other factors, can influence how individuals experience and are affected by environmental stress. Women in contexts of deep-rooted gender inequality, as well as…

Island and coastal regions belong to the most climate change-exposed habitats. Today, people living in island states experience the devastating effects of extreme tropical cyclones, rising sea levels, droughts and ocean acidification. In some cases, entire cultures are at risk of extinction because…

This publication, prepared by the FAO Statistics Division, offers a synthesis of the major factors at play in the global food and agricultural landscape. Statistics are presented in four thematic chapters, covering the economic importance of agricultural activities, inputs, outputs and factors of…