Land is defined as a system engaged in generating biological productivity. It is the earth’s infrastructure for life. The rate and quality of production generated from the land depends on its major components, soil and its fertility. Soil organic matter, derived from the vegetation supported by a particular soil, is the major component that controls soil fertility.

International policy and decision makers now recognize that the link between environmental change and migration has grave consequences for human security. The paradigm of security has shifted away from purely state-centered models to a model that encompasses the greater idea of human development as freedom. The new model implies greater international awareness of the importance of sustainable development for all people – including an intact environment and the ability of all people to enjoy good health and respectable work.

Les acteurs politiques et décideurs internationaux reconnaissent à présent que le lien entre changement climatique et migration a de graves conséquences sur la sécurité humaine. Le paradigme sécuritaire s’est déplacé, passant de modèles purement centrés sur l’état à un modèle englobant cette grande idée du développement humain qu’est la liberté.

Aquellos que formulan políticas y decisiones internacionales reconocen que la relación entre el cambio medioambiental y la migración tiene graves consecuencias para la seguridad humana. El paradigma de la seguridad se ha alejado de los modelos centrados exclusivamente en el Estado para acercase a un patrón que contempla una idea más amplia: la del desarrollo humano como modelo de libertad.

Dryland mountains are among the least-known environments in the world, and certainly one of the most overlooked by decision- and policy-makers.

Dryland mountains have an outstanding strategic value. They act as water towers for surrounding dry lowland areas, as shown by the examples of the Rocky Mountains of North America, the Central Andes, the mountains of the Mediterranean Basin, the Sahara and Sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia, and Central Asia

Land is the foundation for all life-sustaining processes on Earth. Through its physical, chemical, and biological attributes, land underpins a wide range of ecosystem goods and services that humanity depends on for survival.

Asia and the Pacific, for the purposes of this book, encompasses a vast territory extending from Mongolia in the north to New Zealand in the south; from the Cook Islands in the east to Kuwait in the west (Map 1). The environmental diversity of Asia and the Pacific is therefore vast, and is contrasted by the region’s coldest and hottest deserts, verdant tropical rainforests, extensive steppe, desert steppe, grassland and rangelands, mountains and plains.

As the world reviews its progress in tackling global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), drylands can no longer be ignored. Drylands account for more than a third of the world’s land surface and more than 2 billion of its people. Yet for too long, drylands and their inhabitants have been neglected in development processes.

More than two billion people depend on the world’s arid and semi-arid lands. Preventing land degradation and supporting sustainable development in drylands has major implications for food security, climate change and human settlement. This report, issued at the beginning of the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, sets out a shared strategy by UN agencies to rise to the challenge of addressing the special needs of these vital zones.

La terre — une ressource vitale pour la population mondiale

Often, when people think of drylands, they think of deserts and hostile living conditions, economic hardship and water scarcity. But that is not what drylands are all about. If managed well, drylands are often fertile and capable of supporting the habitats, crops and livestock that sustain the entire global population.

In the not so long history of humankind, our ancestors too often fought for land and water. Those days have returned.