Enfrentamos, hoje, as emergências duplas e interligadas das mudanças climáticas induzidas pelo ser humano e da perda de biodiversidade, ameaçando o bem-estar das gerações atuais e futuras. Uma vez que nosso futuro depende criticamente da biodiversidade e de um clima estável, é essencial que compreendamos como o declínio da natureza e as alterações climáticas estão conectados.

Significant land-based investments in agriculture and forestry are essential to meet growing global demand for food and to help counteract the likely impacts of climate change. Such investments can have a number of beneficial impacts, such as enhancing food security, generating foreign currency, improving natural resource manage-

This report looks at how Governments are using land in climate pledges. An international team analyzed commitments made for years 2030, 2050, and 2060 — looking at individual pledges and the implications for land use. The data should be considered a first approximation. Many national plans are still vague. There is a need for much greater clarity in nationally determined contributions about land use – and greater realism on the limits of land for carbon dioxide removal purposes.

Land is the bridge between companies’ environmental and social sustainability agendas, and it is foundational to both. To implement their commitments on climate change, net zero emissions, human rights, women’s empowerment, and farmer livelihoods, companies must focus on land in agricultural value chains: who controls it, who can access it, who has rights to it, and who enjoys the benefits derived from it (‘land inequality’).

Es importante notar que las pérdidas y daños tienen una dimensión económica pero también tienen una dimensión no-económica. Los aspectos no económicos pueden incluir la cultura, tradiciones, idiomas, etc. Las pérdidas y daños tienen un impacto significativo en los derechos humanos de las personas y sus comunidades (Serdeczny 2019; Martínez et al. 2022; Martínez 2021; Albar et al. 2020).

This report summarizes the science on the biophysical effects of deforestation on climate stability and explores the policy implications of the resulting impacts at three scales: global climate policy, regional cooperation on precipitation management, and national policies related to agriculture and public health. For each of these policy arenas, there are promising entry points to address current gaps through innovations in policies and institutions.

This primer focuses on one type of livestock-keeping: pastoralism. Pastoralism is a way of raising livestock that makes use of variable landscapes by moving animals and managing their grazing.1 It provides livelihoods for many millions of people and makes use of rangelands on every continent but Antarctica, across more than half the world’s land surface.

Livestock can be good for the environment. It depends on which livestock, where. Pastoralism – the system of often mobile, extensive livestock production on rangelands – can improve biodiversity, help sequester carbon and protect the environment. In the face of simplistic anti-livestock narratives, it is important to recognise the role of pastoral systems and pastoralists in addressing the linked crises of climate and biodiversity.

Huge global targets for tree planting are being set; everyone is urged to plant a tree to save the planet. But does this always make sense, particularly in rangelands where pastoralists live? Discussions in the run up to the UN’s COP15 conference on biodiversity have focused on tree planting as a way to combat desertification, improve biodiversity and address climate change through ‘carbon offset’ schemes. Many of these initiatives are deeply problematic, yet have targeted over one billion hectares of rangelands across the worldi .

Extensive livestock use can enhance biodiversity and support species conservation in multiple ways. Mobile pastoral systems can create bio-corridors through transhumance routes and disperse seeds, enhancing biodiversity across landscapes, for example. Mobile livestock also create fertile hotspots across rangelands, and livestock grazing is essential in reducing fire loads in vulnerable ecosystems.

In recent years there have been devastating wildfires across the world. Wildfire incidence is increasing with climate change, and wildfires are predicted to increase by 50% by the end of the centuryi . Such intense, uncontrolled wildfires are massively damaging to environments and to people, involving multiple deaths – including among firefighters - and widespread destruction of property.