Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services.

An expansion of drylands would lead to reduced carbon sequestration and enhanced regional warming, resulting in warming trends over the present drylands that are double those over humid regions.

Land degradation and desertification are important issues to both ecological and social research. The need for a quantitative, repeatable methodology to assess land degradation and desertification reliably is more pressing than ever before.

The detrimental impacts of these processes on land resources, which are widely recognized as environmental problems of global concern become really dramatic in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions (drylands), where land degradation is more properly defined as desertification.

Its preservation is essential for food security and our sustainable future. Today, 33 percent of land is moderately to highly degraded due to the erosion, salinization, compaction, acidification and chemical pollution of soils.

In this study authors used the Global Inventory Monitoring and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) dataset to analyze trends in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in the world’s semiarid regions, based on 30 years of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Advanced Very High Resolution…

The International Forestry Review is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research and review papers on all aspects of forest policy and science, with an emphasis on issues of transnational significance.

CIFOR scientists reviewed studies looking at gender dynamics in communities living in and near dry forests – an important but under-researched ecosystem.

This paper reviews the role of dry forests in providing goods and services to the rural poor.

The assessment of land degradation and the quantification of its effects on land productivity have been both a scientific and political challenge. After four decades of Earth Observation (EO) applications, little agreement has been gained on the magnitude and direction of land degradation in the…

The papers present original research on land (soil and vegetation) degradation and desertification in drylands (and related subjects) using spectroscopy and remote sensing tools and techniques.

It is unclear how the current global food system will meet the growing demands of a population expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050. In the present context of climate change, ongoing loss of species and genetic diversity, soil degradation, increasing urbanization, social conflict and extreme…

For the successful upscaling of land management, more attention must be paid to the social system from the first involvement stage, up to the long term maintenance.

Ecological restoration and the mainstreaming of the concept of ecosystem services will be critical if global society is to move toward sustainability.

The concept of Zero Net Land Degradation was recently proposed as the basis for a future protocol for the UNCCD to reduce global dryland degradation.

It pays particular attention to three dimensions: economic and financial volatility, the role of the private sector, and the domestic resource mobilization.

Realizing the ‘transformative potential’ of the Agenda in the decade and a half to come will be far from a technocratic exercise – and this is particularly true for the full realization of women's rights.

The gender equality goal in Agenda 2030, like many other goals, was the subject of wide-ranging consultations, position papers, and extensive commentaries issued by women’s rights organizations and networks, academics, and UN agencies.

This article examines the nature of commitments that countries have made and if follow-up and review arrangements currently planned are consistent with those. In particular, we consider the need to encompass both the global SDG targets and the nationally defined targets foreseen

Centre for Land Tenure Studies (CLTS) Working Paper on land tenure reforms and land markets in Africa

While never offering a blueprint, FOLA shares a diversity of insights, experiences, and lessons from countries across the continent, highlighting the critical role of property rights in local livelihoods and development.

Land as a resource. European Commission. Land is a finite resource. It is subject to competing pressures from urbanisation, infrastructure, increased food, feed, fibre and fuel production and the provision of key ecosystem

Almost four years ago, CIFOR organized a side event on the tropical dry forests of Africa at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa. At that event, we identified the major issues affecting dry forests in Africa and…