Community land, crucial to rural livelihood around the world, is increasingly targeted by commercial interests. Its loss can lead to environmental degradation, increased rural poverty and land disputes that last for years. Without formal legal recognition of their land rights, communities…
Soil ecosystem services, as all ecosystem services (ESS), are fundamental for meeting societal needs such as food and energy provision and for overcoming societal challenges like climate change mitigation and adaptation. The MAES (Mapping and Assessment on Ecosystems and their Services) Soil…
Soil provides us with essential services. We grow our food in it, it filters rainwater before it reaches aquifers, it supports our buildings, it hosts diverse life forms. Europeans need multi-functional and healthy soils locally and globally to maintain this natural capital while satisfying the…
Removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) combined with emission reduction is necessary to keep climate warming below the internationally agreed upon 2°C target. Soil organic carbon sequestration through agricultural management has been proposed as a means to lower atmospheric CO2…
Global food security and agricultural land management represent two urgent and intimately related challenges that humans must face. The authors quantify the changes in the global agricultural land footprint if the world were to adhere to the dietary guidelines put forth by the United States…
Land degradation is a pervasive, systemic phenomenon: it occurs in all parts of the terrestrial world and can take many forms. Combating land degradation and restoring degraded land is an urgent priority to protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services vital to all life on Earth and to ensure…
Trends.Earth (formerly the Land Degradation Monitoring Toolbox) is a platform for monitoring land change using earth observations in an innovative desktop and cloud-based system.
The three sub-indicators for monitoring achievement of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN, Sustainable…
Land degradation is a pervasive, systemic phenomenon: it occurs in all parts of the terrestrial world and can take many forms. Combating land degradation and restoring degraded land is an urgent priority to protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services vital to all life on Earth and to ensure…
The Action Against Desertification (AAD) project supports eight countries – Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Fiji,
Gambia, Haiti, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal – in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States in the
sustainable management and restoration of degraded land. Baseline…
The negative consequences of human actions have brought our world and our future to a dangerous crossroads: will we be able to avert the worst impacts of climate change? How can we stop and reverse the loss of fertile soil, biodiversity, and other natural capital that supplies all our food and…
The current context in the Sahel-Saharan Band is clearly dominated by recurrent issues of desertification, land degradation and climate change.
The acuteness and the importance of these challenges and their impacts on ecosystems, communities, and local populations in terms of sustainable…
The article reviews the most recent research surrounding the potential role of organic agriculture in providing food for the planet. It challenges the claims of organic agriculture’s environmental superiority compared to well-managed, conventional agriculture.
The relative advantages of…