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…

Damage to vulnerable infrastructure caused by climate hazards could triple by the 2020s and rise over ten-fold by the end of the century.

Agronomy for Sustainable Development (ASD) is a journal of the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE). It welcomes multidisciplinary articles that bridge agronomy, cropping and farming system research with ecological, genetic, environmental, economical and social…

Women’s resource access rights more precarious, under-rated and -valued work, under-representation in decision-making and leadership structures… Yet women are active in defending their rights and combating desertification, i.e. many are involved in counteracting land degradation or even in its…

Climate Box is an interactive learning programme targeting school children to teach them about the science behind climate change, including practical tips on how to reduce their carbon footprint and adapt to impacts of climate change. It was developed by a multidisciplinary team of authors -…

The world’s leading climate science organizations have joined forces to produce a landmark new report for the United Nations Climate Action Summit, underlining the glaring – and growing gaps – between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the actual reality. The report, United in Science…

The State of the Climate in Africa 2019, report provides a snapshot of climate trends, observed high-impact events and associated risks and impacts on key sensitive sectors in Africa. The report also draws lessons on existing gaps in climate change action

Leveraging LDN Commitments to Boost Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. The greatest prospects for reversing land degradation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss lie in transforming how we use and manage human, financial and natural capital to produce, distribute, and…

How to be a Hero for All our Children: A People's Climate Toolkit is a guide to personal and political climate action. Gathering climate science from the latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), alongside suggested personal actions and questions for politicians, “How…

Climate change is already happening and represents one of the greatest environmental and societal threats facing the planet and our own existence. With the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in force this month and the skeptics who threaten its implementation, the time for bold and unprecedented…

According to FAO, women make significant contributions to rural economies across the globe, comprising 43 percent of the global agricultural labor force, and up to 50 percent or more in many parts of Asia and Africa.

A new study has quantified the economic impact of reducing avoidable food waste in Germany, Poland and Spain. The researchers modelled impacts on production, GDP and employment. The results show that reducing food waste from households has the greatest impact, although policy measures should be…

At the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, this 60th issue of ETFRN News is very timely, with the preface signed by UNCCD Executive Secretary Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw, reflecting a focus on drylands that cover some 40% of the world’s land area and contain some of the most severely degraded…

Healthy forests mean healthy people. Forests provide health benefits for everyone: fresh air, nutritious foods, clean water, and recreation space. In developed countries, up to 25 percent of all medicinal drugs are plant-based; in developing countries, the number is as high as 80 percent. While…

Natural solutions such as tree planting, protecting peatlands and better land management could account for 37% of all cuts needed by 2030, says study

Land Degradation & Development © John Wiley & Sons Ltd Volume 27, Issue 8 Pages 1781 - 1872, November 2016 Special Issue: Desertification: History, Causes and Options for its Control

The report, “Resource Efficiency: Potential and Economic Implications,” which was commissioned in 2015 and released in Berlin at the G20 meeting, found that while investment in ambitious climate action would cause a 3.7 per cent fall in per capita gross world product by 2050, more sustainable use of…

Environmental protection and human food security co-exist in a critical balance, one that is often difficult to get right. The pressures of population rise, farming intensification, and loss of habitats and species mean that protections afforded under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are…

“Extended drought due to enhanced warming and rapid population growth pose major threats to the people living in the drylands,” says atmospheric scientist Jianping Huang at Lanzhou University in China. “Degradation and desertification will become a challenge to the global ecosystem and human…

Biodiversity refers to the variety and number of species of life found within certain regions and in the world as a whole. An ecosystem is an ensemble consisting of a specific environment and the living beings in it. There are a great number of different species within the same ecosystem, and a huge…

The natural world is under threat. In the Amazon, more than 150 acres of rainforest are lost every minute of every day. Wildlife population sizes have seen an alarming average drop of 68% since 1970. And this isn't just about the natural world - it's about our world as well. We depend on nature for…

Land, air and water are the cornerstones of life on Earth. To sustain the vitality of our global ecosystem, we must understand the health of our natural assets and how to halt and repair damage done to them. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)…

The Sahara Desert has expanded by about 10 percent since 1920, according to a new study by University of Maryland scientists. The research is the first to assess century-scale changes to the boundaries of the world's largest desert and suggests that other deserts could be expanding as well. The…

Climate change is already influencing migration and population movements – and will do so in future. Two perspectives on the nexus of migration and climate change have emerged: On the one hand, much policy and research attention is directed to climate change as a cause for migration, and for…

This OECD Global Forum on Environment focuses on "Mainstreaming Gender and Empowering Women for Environmental Sustainability". It will identify and propose ways to capitalise on synergies between environmental policies and economic and social goals, such as achieving gender equality and women’s…