The increasing demand for rural land and its natural resources is creating competition and conflicts. Many interested parties, including farmers, nature conservationists, rural residents and tourists, compete for the same space. Especially in densely populated areas, agriculture, recreation, urban and suburban growth and infrastructure development exert a constant pressure on rural areas.

Today, the Coalition for Urban Transitions releases a new report ‘Seizing the Urban Opportunity’, which provides insights from six emerging economies on how national governments can recover from COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis and secure shared prosperity through cities. Launching as a call to action for national governments ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, it builds on the Coalition’s flagship 2019 report: Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity.

These guidelines support GEF project developers in formulating projects that contribute to the LDN ambitions of countries and in ensuring that other projects not directly targeting LDN are compatible with LDN objectives and approaches. The guidelines complement and expand the Checklist for Land Degradation Neutrality Transformative Projects and Programmes.They are intended to be applied during project development and at the problem definition and intervention design stages; they are also relevant to monitoring the achievement of LDN goals.

The latest IPCC report highlights that a change in diets for richer nations, and smarter land use, could ensure food security and mitigation of potential climate impacts.

Land surface processes — agriculture, forestry and other land use — account for 28% of anthropogenic emissions. However, natural land processes absorb about a third of the emissions from fossil fuel burning and energy production.

Life on Earth depends on healthy soils. The soil under our feet is a living system – home to many fascinating plants and animals, whose invisible interactions ensure our well-being and that of the planet. Soils provide us with nutritious food and other products as well as with clean water and flourishing habitats for biodiversity. At the same time, soils can help slow the onset of climate change and make us more resilient to extreme climate events such as droughts and floods. Soils preserve our cultural heritage and are a key part of the landscapes that we all cherish.

The Living Planet Report 2020 shows that there is an opportunity to heal our relationship with nature and mitigate risks of future pandemics but this better future starts with the decisions that governments, companies and people around the world take today. World leaders must take urgent action to protect and restore nature as the foundation for a healthy society and a thriving economy.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) work with nature to benefit both natural ecosystems and the people that depend on them. By putting nature at the centre, NbS address a range of societal challenges: protecting, sustainably managing or restoring natural or modified ecosystems and supporting their health, function and biodiversity.

The research collated in this brief confirms that NbS deliver simultaneously multiple benefits and shows the wide-ranging beneficial impacts of scaling up their implementation across Europe.

This paper explores the land footprint related to EU bioenergy consumption and aims to contribute to the discussion on how EU bioenergy targets impact on scarce global land resources, both cropland and forest areas. In the last decade, demand for EU bioenergy has risen significantly, largely driven by political targets and subsidies. Our calculations show that the total land footprint related to EU bioenergy is likely to expand from 44.5 Mha (an area of the size of Sweden) in 2010 to 70.2 Mha (an area of the size of Poland and Sweden combined) in 2030.

How land is used affects a wide range of outcomes – from day-to-day quality of life, such as the length of commutes, to the environmental sustainability of urban and rural communities, including the possibility for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Moreover, the economic importance of land is immense. Land and the buildings on it are approximately seven times as valuable as all other assets taken together and land-use policies play a crucial role in determining land and property prices. Beyond economic value, land also has important sentimental value.

The report addresses a much debated issue – bioenergy and associated land use change, and how the climate change mitigation from use of bioenergy can be influenced by greenhouse gas emissions arising from land use change. The purpose of this background report is to supply a more detailed, fully referenced version for practitioners, and researchers, in support of the short version (IEA Bioenergy: ExCo:2010:03) which was aimed at policy advisors and policy makers.

Rangelands cover a surface area of more than 2 million hectares in Cameroon. Despite their relatively unpredictable climate and unproductive nature they provide a wide variety of goods and services including forage for livestock, habitat for wildlife, water and minerals, woody products, recreational services, nature conservation as well as acting as carbon sinks. Rangelands in Cameroon are predominantly grassland savanna with three types distinguishable: the Guinean savanna, Sudan savanna (also known as ‘derived montane grasslands’), and the Sahel savanna.

This playbook details 23 behavior change strategies to help food service companies support diners in choosing more sustainable, plant-rich dishes when shopping or dining out – action that’s important for meeting global emissions goals and achieving the Paris Agreement on climate change.