Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is a paradigm shift in land management policies and practices. It is a unique approach that counterbalances the expected loss of productive land with the recovery of degraded areas. It strategically places the measures to conserve, sustainably manage and restore…

The concept of land is fundamental and deeply held within every human culture. Land is our life-support system. It is not just real estate. It embraces the air above and its climate; the natural vegetation and wildlife; managed crops, forest, range, and livestock; surface- and groundwater; the…

Land provides vital environmental functions and ecosystem services, including provisioning and regulating services. It is also inextricably linked to human well-being and plays a role in food security and livelihoods. When land resources are over-exploited and degraded, quality of life is negatively…

Agriculture is the single biggest land use covering more than one-third of the world’s land surface, not including Greenland and Antarctica. The amount and quality of land available for food production is under pressure from the decisions and demands made by consumers, producers, and governments…

There has been a massive and unprecedented explosion in energy use since the 19th century; global energy use has grown by more than 20 times in the last 200 years, far outstripping the rate of population growth (Grübler, 2004). In particular, the use of fossil fuels has increased dramatically…

The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) response hierarchy of avoiding degradation, reducing degradation and restoring degraded land are also included in the forest landscape restoration (FLR) approach. It is defined as a long-term process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human well…

The Global Land Outlook (GLO) is a strategic communications platform and publication that demonstrates the central importance of land quality to human well-being, assesses current trends in land conversion, degradation and loss, identifies the driving factors and analyzes the impacts, provides…

Given growing demands on land and emerging challenges from land degradation and climate change, policymakers require information on the possible consequences. This chapter explores trends up to 2050, through the Shared Socio-economic Pathways scenarios, based on the report ‘Exploring the impact of…

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, one fact has never been more evident – our world, our planet and our lives are inextricably interconnected. There are very few issues that can be considered simply “health problems,” as nearly every aspect of life is connected to other…