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 Pilot aims to increase awareness on the importance of soil functions and related ecosystem services and to show their value. The pilot shows the need for protection, management and restoration of soil ecosystems and the need to make a more sustainable and efficient use of it.

This infographic builds on the Regional Dialogue on Women’s Inclusion in Landscape Management,
organized by WOCAN in partnership with RECOFTC and The Forests Dialogue, 7-9 Oct. 2014, Thailand

The report’s findings suggest that policies and programmes of governments and the development partners could include a stronger focus on the development of peri-urban areas and smaller cities and towns. The rapid pace of change in peri-urban areas throws into relief any underlying issues in land tenure arrangements, land administration/planning and governance, such as overlapping mandates, conflicts in tenure systems, weak land administration/planning capacity and wider political economy issues that can block positive reforms.

Arid and semi-arid biomes support valuable ecosystems with livelihoods linked to rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism and have unique biodiversity and cultural values. However, desertification is land degradation in dry-lands that leads to loss of productivity and ecosystem services. Climate change is expected to increase arid biomes and stress on dry-lands due to increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation that will impact vegetation, livestock and people.

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 needs of a prosperous society. Soil must be safeguarded by urban and rural spatial planning and sustaining soil and land management based on applying the best available knowledge.

The rise of urban populations has rendered cities in both developed and developing countries vulnerable to poor health and diseases that are associated with urban living conditions and environments. Therefore, there is a growing consensus that while personal factors are critical in determining health, the urban environment exacerbates or mitigates health outcomes, and as such the solution for improving health outcomes in urban settings can be found in addressing socio-environmental factors that shape urban environments.

Since the publication of the Report of the Brundtland Commission (Our Common Future) in 1987, and the consequent Earth Summit on sustainable development, global attention on natural resource scarcity and degradation has been increasing, because of climate change and rising food and energy prices. This awareness, in turn, has led to growing interest in land investments by the private and public sectors. Despite this interest, however, land degradation has not been comprehensively addressed at the global level or in developing countries.

The African Highlands Initiative works to enhance livelihoods and reverse natural resource degradation
through the development of innovative methods,practices,policies and approaches.

In October 2016 the Liberia Land Authority (LLA|) was legislated as the Nation’s first one-stop-shop for land management and administration. The LLA has the statutory mandate to administer land administration across the nation. The Authority is charged with supporting the development of a National Land Use and Management Agenda.

Zimbabwe has been experiencing a rapid rate of urbanization amidst a failure by conventional approaches of urban land management to cope with the demand for housing. In view of these challenges, this paper investigates the feasibility and nature of land readjustment for urban land management in Zimbabwe. Using case study research methodology and a desk review of evidence from developed and developing countries the potential use of land readjustment in Zimbabwe is examined.

L’étude relative aux impacts des actions des ONG sur la gestion durable des aires protégées dans la reserve de Biosphere de Luki(RBL), dans la Province du Kongo central situées à l’Ouest de la RDC, montre que cette réserve regorge une diversité biologique particulière qui est soumise à une pression importante due aux activités anthropiques. Plusieurs ONG s’y implantent. Les enquêtes sur les activités de ces ONG ont été effectuées en vue d’en décéler les impacts sur la réserve et sur le développement de la population locale.

Building on the current international discourse and United Nation's System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) this study provides further empirical evidences on how failure to include natural capital resources in national accounting leads to erroneous calculation of macroeconomic estimates. The SEEA methodological framework for integrating natural capital into the System of National Accounts amplifies analytical power of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models and allows to investigate relationship between the economy and the environment.