It is estimated that 20% of global land is either degraded or undergoing degradation, leading to an annual loss of 12 million hectares of productive land (UNCCD 2017). In Africa, some 715 million ha are degraded, including 65% of all arable land, 30% of all grazing land and 20% of all forests. This is due to increasing populations, poor land management, institutional challenges and climate change (Gnacadja and Wiese 2016).

The Lawra district of the Upper West region was selected as the case study. This study compared crop yields for FMNR and non-FMNR farmers. FMNR farmers are classified as having at least 8 trees per acre, with an average of 13 trees per acre (33 per ha) and a maximum of 40. Non-FMNR farmers are classified as having between 1 and 7 trees per acre, with an average of 5.Qualitative (focus group discussion) and quantitative (household survey) data were collected in April to May 2019. Over 500 households were interviewed in both CIKOD intervention communities and control sites.

Nature loss is a planetary emergency. Humanity has already wiped out 83% of wild mammals and half of all plants and severely altered three-quarters of ice-free land and two-thirds of marine environments. One million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades – a rate tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks Report ranks biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as one of the top five threats humanity will face in the next ten years.

In a world in which poverty is increasingly concentrated in vulnerable or fragile states, and fragility is increasingly driven by climate change, climate-induced displacement has become one of the most visible manifestations of the relationship between ecological and societal breakdown. Newest figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reveal that over 70% of the 33 million newly displaced people (2019) had climate-related triggers.

Land use change is a major global driver of pandemic risk. Land usechange is a significant driver of the transmission and emergence of infectious diseases 40,177-179. Land use changeis cited as the cause of over 30% of emerging infectious diseases, and correlates significantly withthe emergence of novel zoonoses globally 13,180. However, the mechanisms by which diseases emergeare context-specific and scale-dependent.

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are continuously under the threat from the adverse effects of climate change and land degradation impacts. Erratic climatic patterns have made daily weather previsions unreliable and are becoming a challenge for communities to take appropriate timely and preventive measures. Land degradation directly increases CO2 emissions, contributing to climate change and vice versa.

Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have committed to establishing national voluntary LDN targets. By establishing LDN targets, SIDS have defined their ambitions and key priorities to address land degradation. The LDN target setting process allowed national stakeholders to systematically analyze the causes and effects of land degradation and to come up with evidence-based decisions on what is desirable and feasible to avoid, reduce or reverse land degradation by 2030.

Land is the foundation for all life on Earth. How land is used and managed influences nature, food, water, energy, climate, and even our health. Today, the pressures on land and the wealth of resources it provides are greater than at any other time in human history.

At the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Summit on 25-26 September 2015, world leaders adopted the global framework ‘Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, which included 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. The 2030 Agenda builds on the Millennium Development Goals and aims to eradicate poverty, leaving no one behind, and to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path.

Established in 1994, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found.

Land lies at the very foundation of our society and social life; it plays a central role in the livelihoods and cultural identities of communities across the globe, and contains the resources that underpin our now globalised world. However, partly because of this, it is often at the heart of social and political conflicts. Increasing demand for food, energy and other primary products is driving agribusinesses, mining companies and speculative investors in a quest for new land to acquire and exploit.

يتناول هذا الدليل التقني، الذي اشتركت في إعداده أمانتا منظمة الأمم المتحدة للأغذية والزراعة (الفاو) واتفاقية الأمم المتحدة لمكافحة التصحر، بمساهمات من أصحاب المصلحة المتعددين، إدماج المبادئ التوجيهية الطوعية بشأن الإدارة المسؤولة لحيازة الأراضي ومصائد الأسماك والغابات في سياق الأمن الغذائي الوطني في تنفيذ اتفاقية الأمم المتحدة لمكافحة التصحر وتحييد أثر تدهور الأراضي. وبالتالي فتح فصل جديد في الجهود الجارية لمكافحة التصحر وتدهور الأراضي والجفاف.