Greening a Toxic Dryland

Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) has been defined by the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification as: “A state whereby the amount and quality of land resources, necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems.”

To date, over 110 countries have engaged with the LDN target setting programmeand considerable progress has been made since the 2030 Sustainable Development Agendawas adopted in 2015.

LDN counterbalances the expected loss of productive land with the recovery of degraded areas, and it stresses the importance of effective land use planning. Such planning implies multi-stakeholder engagement, including local, regional and national governance structures.

UN Environment is doing gap analysis studies for rangeland, pastoralism and land degradation (in response to a 2016 UN Environment Assembly Resolution on pastoralism and land degradation), and with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification on soil pollution (in line with a 2017 UN Environment Assembly Resolution).

The World Day to Combat Desertification is celebrated each year on 17 June. This year’s theme focuses on sustainable land management to regenerate economies, create jobs and revitalize communities.

Under the slogan Land has true value – Invest in it, campaigners are calling for all involved – producers, consumers and policy makers – to make a difference by investing in the future of land.

Global observance of the Day will be hosted by the Government of Ecuador, which will be showcasing its nationwide efforts in making sustainable land management the principal tool for the development of the bio-economy.

*SOURCE: UN Environment. Go to ORIGINAL. 

Read also:

You Are More Powerful than You Think!