Societal drivers including poverty eradication, gender equality, indigenous recognition, adequate housing, sustainable agriculture, food security, climate change response, and good governance, influence contemporary land administration design. Equally, the opportunities provided by technological development also influence design approaches. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) attempts to align both: the data model provides a standardised global vocabulary for land administration.

Forestry policy and practice in Britain has been subject to a series of paradigm changes since the establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1919. Drawing on a documentary analysis of legislation, published policy statements, commentaries and scholarly critiques, this paper argues that British forestry policy has undergone three significant paradigm shifts since it was first mooted in the late 19th century.

Weak or non-existing linkage of official registers in the Republic of Croatia and the data redundancy as an inevitable outcome of such a state are the causes of various unwanted consequences for the relevant public authorities, as well as for citizens and companies as the end-users of that data. In this paper we present the results of an analysis of the status of the redundancy within the Croatian land administration-related registers.

The development of modern high efficiency bioenergy technologies has the potential to improve energy security and access while reducing environmental impacts and stimulating low-carbon development. While modern bioenergy production is increasing in the world, it still makes a small contribution to our energy matrix. At present, approximately 87% of energy demand is satisfied by energy produced through consumption of fossil fuels.

Projected land demands for bioenergy fall well within conservative estimates of current and future land availability (240 to 905 Mha). Estimates for the amount of modern bioenergy needed to meaningfully mitigate climate change range from 80 to 200 EJ in the 2050 timeframe. At the upper end of this range, we estimate that about 200 million hectares would be required. This may be compared to most estimates for the amount of land available for bioenergy, which exceed 500 million hectares.

Land degradation and desertification reduce the provision of ecosystem services by lands and soils. This constrains development, reduces water, food, and energy security, and triggers resource conflicts. Although biophysical processes and economic impacts are increasingly understood, efforts to combat degradation have been failing thus far to prevent further losses of land productivity, a cost estimated at 42 billion USD/year (Dregne & Chou, 1992; Requier-Desjardins, 2007).

The land use sector represents almost 25% of total global emissions. These emissions can be reduced. There is also great potential for carbon sequestration through the scaling up, and scaling out, of proven and effective practices. Improved land use and management, such as low-emissions agriculture, agro-forestry and ecosystem conservation and restoration could, under certain circumstances, further reduce the remaining emissions gap by up to 25%. These climate-smart land management practices nearly always come with adaptation co-benefits.

Drylands have always been the subject to intra- and inter-annul fluctuations of climate conditions, with important consequences for ecosystem function and productivity.

Over the last three decades the issues of sustainability have been addressed and policy options have been proposed at the global, regional and sometimes at the national level to revert the negative trends on the social, economic and environmental aspects of development. But still, we are in front of a scenario that indicates that if land resources are not managed in a sustainable manner, the inter-generational issue of sustainable development will not be achieved.

With an expected 9.5 billion people living on earth by 2050, population pressure, higher consumer expectations and climate change will tax and degrade our natural resource base, especially the LAND. With an increasing awareness of the potential of land to meet public and private development goals, land is being seen as an ever more attractive investment vehicle.

Land degradation is a widespread crisis, destabilizing nations and communities on a global scale. To be clear, food will be less plentiful (and thus more expensive) unless responsible land management and res- toration is given priority on the international political agenda. The commitment to halt and reverse land degradation will undoubtedly feature prominently in post-2015 development and climate agendas.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has developed a comprehensive work program that can help its members better understand risks linked to inaction and opportunities for action, structuring its work program around the international discussions led by the UNCCD on LDN. In particular LDN is reflected in the WBCSD’s Action2020 targets of “restoring at least 12 million hectares per year of degraded land”, and a business solution on “Restoring Degraded Land” has been developed to provide a response to land degradation challenges and the LDN target.