As investments in nature are needed more than ever, and are increasingly gaining traction, the challenge is to identify environmental and social risks and to demonstrate positive impacts associated with investing in nature-based projects in a standardized and comparable manner. To help create a…

Starting with the vision of what LDN is expected to achieve, the conceptual framework focus is “on maintaining or enhancing the land resource base, (the stocks of natural capital associated with land resources), in order to sustain the ecosystem services that flow from them, including food…

The importance of transforming the land sector to help meet the 2 degree C goal cannot be overstated. Today, emissions from agriculture and land use change account for nearly a quarter of all human-caused emissions. At the same time, forests soak up one-third of the fossil fuel emissions we emit…

Two-thirds of the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have already submitted or are preparing to submit to the United Nations their land degradation goals, to combat a problem that threatens agriculture and the lives of their people. In 2015, the parties to the United Nations Convention…

This paper evaluates the feasibility of introducing a Land Degradation Neutral (LDN) scheme as an activity of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

WRI’s Land & Carbon Lab harnesses the data revolution to monitor the pulse of the planet’s land and its nature-based carbon. We provide decision-makers everywhere with the information they need to address the global land squeeze – to combat climate change, protect biodiversity, and improve people’s…

Population growth and urbanization have brought people into direct conflict with many aspects of nature. This conflict has elicited important challenges such as climate change, ecosystem degradation, and increasing socioeconomic disasters from major natural hazards. As urban expansion subsumes rural…

Speeding up efforts to reverse or prevent land degradation in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is vital in the next few years if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved. That was the message at an event hosted by FAO last week during the 13th session of the Conference of the…

The Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) provides a scientific foundation for understanding, implementing and monitoring LDN. It has been designed to create a bridge between the vision and the practical implementation of LDN, by defining LDN in operational terms. The…

The Land Portal Foundation, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) launched a weekly blog series promoting land monitoring and information sharing for the SDGs. Seven Latin American countries launched a project to measure the organic carbon…

The new report "Land carbon: No substitute for action on fossil fuels" finds that while increasing carbon in land systems is important, Australia is muddying the waters by combining land carbon and fossil fuel reduction policies – which is giving an inaccurate picture of Australia’s progress in…

The report “Land Degradation Neutrality for Biodiversity Conservation: How Healthy Land Safeguards Nature” highlights how LDN can address the priorities of both the CBD and the UNCCD in an effective and complementary manner. According to the report, LDN and the CBD’s 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for…

Worsening land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity, driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. It is also a major contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the world’s first comprehensive…

An assessment of land degradation trends, coupled with an analysis of the drivers behind these trends, proved an essential step for SIDS to understand the current conditions of land degradation, reveal anomalies and identify degraded areas. It also provided an evidence-based overview of areas that…

The Land Degradation Neutrality Initiative of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) encourages each of the 123 signatory countries to stabilise or reduce their extent of degraded land. Land degradation is assessed using the methods described in the Good Practice Guidance (GPG) document…

An EEA briefing published today proposes an analytical framework that aims at developing a strategy for monitoring and integrated assessment of the state of land and its key resources

Restoring degraded land could inject $84 billion a year to the global economy, according to researchers, but public resources fall short of unlocking this potential.

Want to make land use sustainable? It’s a wicked problem. Using Australia as a case study confirms that it’s hard to have it all.

Land provides humans with the means to live, and from the first steps tread upon it, has been a patient provider of vital resources.

WOCAT – The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies with its unique methodology and global Sustainable Land Management (SLM) database - can help promote scaling out of SLM and thus contribute to land degradation neutrality. This paper focuses primarily on three Land Degradation…

Representing nearly 41% of the land above sea level, arid zones are home to more than two billion people who suffer from the ongoing degradation of the land and soil that provide them sustenance. Owing to desertification and droughts, nearly twelve million hectares of land are no longer arable each…

This publication introduces SLM and its principles and presents how good SLM practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina were documented, evaluated, selected and scaled through participatory land use planning processes. High demand for agricultural products and raw materials produced on land is under…

Land degradation is a major threat to ecosystem functioning and services. Its negative impact locally coupled with off side environmental and social effects presents a major challenge for communities both on local and global levels. Climate change brings additional uncertainty to the dynamics of the…

Land is the foundation of our societies. Productive land is a cornerstone to global food security and environmental health, zero hunger, poverty eradication, and energy for all. It underpins the success of the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. And yet this finite resource is under…

Meaning of Land (Global Land Outlook; Part one: The Big Picture, Chapter one) . Our perceptions of land are not only a response to the outside world, but also a cause and an effect of cultural filtering, by which certain phenomena feature prominently, while others recede into the background. In…