Land degradation is a critical problem around the world. Intensive rain-fed and irrigated crop and livestock systems have contributed to the degradation of land and natural resources.
In the developing world, the drivers behind changes in social ecological landscapes (SEL) are intricate and have been steadily intensifying over the years. Regions blessed with abundant natural resources, encompassing fertile soils, lush forests, freshwater bodies, valuable minerals, and more, tend to experience rapid population growth and heightened poverty rates.
In Africa, particularly East Africa, more than 80% of the population depends on agriculture and the income generated from the sector that contributes about 30-40% to the regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Adesina, 2019). Ethiopia is the second most populated country in Africa with 80% of them are living in rural areas (Sakketa, 2022). Studies showed that many families in
The World Food Programme (WFP) supports communities to mitigate the impact of and build resilience to natural and human-made shocks and stressors that contribute to food insecurity and destabilize people’s livelihoods. WFP’s interventions, therefore, aim to equip communities with the knowledge, skills, and tools to avert or mitigate the impact of cyclical natural events such as droughts and floods through asset and capacity building in affected communities.
Vietnam is among the few countries worldwide that have experienced a net increase in forest cover in the past decades. Widespread tree planting efforts have provided important income sources for local communities, including ethnic minority groups. However, the emphasis has been on monocrop plantations of exotic tree species, which has yielded limited ecosystem service benefits such as biodiversity conservation and watershed protection.
This project aims at contributing to the UN resolution 2/24 on combating desertification, land degradation and drought and promoting sustainable pastoralism and rangelands; and UN resolution 4/15 on innovations in sustainable rangelands and pastoralism, as well as the UNEP-led gap analysis on rangelands and the resulting report: Rangelands: A case of benign neglect.
Land degradation affects 24% of the world’s land surface and 1.5 billion of its people. It is the result of human activities, exacerbated by natural processes, and is closely linked to climate change and loss of biodiversity. In Africa two-thirds of arable land is degraded. In Senegal, 2.5 million hectares are degraded (CSE 2011); the central “groundnut basin†is particularly affected.
With climate change, population growth, and land degradation exerting mounting pressures on agricultural systems in developing countries, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategies have been prioritized as a means to strengthen smallholder farmers' resilience. However, precise targeting methodologies remain a challenge. This study employs a comprehensive approach, integrating Socio-economic, and Biophysical (SEBP), and the Five Capitals Model analyses encompassing human, social, physical, natural, and financial capital.
The scaling of land and water technologies has widely increased across different parts of the world; and is recognized as important for ecological systems. These technologies contribute to sustainable management of watersheds on which agriculture, food production and rural livelihoods for most developing communities depend upon.
Agriculture's contribution to the economy and employment is declining at varying rates, posing various socioeconomic issues. Meeting growing agricultural needs with current farming techniques is expected to lead to over-extraction from natural resources, accelerate greenhouse gas emissions, and low yields. In addition, intensive and unsustainable agriculture will lead to environmental degradation such as loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and land degradation, among other things.
Land degradation and discontinuation of ecosystem services (ES) are a common phe nomenon that causes socio-economic and environmental problems in Ethiopia. However, a dearth of information is known about how ES are changing from the past to the future with regard to land use land cover (LULC) changes. This study aimed at estimating the values of ES based on the past and future LULC changes in central Ethiopia.
Land- and nature-based approaches in the agroforestry and forestry sectors provide a unique opportunity to generate win-wins against the interrelated environmental crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and land degradation. Harnessing synergies among these environmental goals, reflected in the Rio Conventions, critically hinges on land-use decisions, which are influenced