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 human well-being

The pressure on land is growing in many regions of the world, due to the increasing demand for arable crops, meat and dairy products, bio-energy and timber, and is exacerbated by land degradation and climate change. This policy report provides scenario projections for the UNCCD Global Land Outlook, exploring future changes to the use and condition of land and the resulting impacts on food, water, climate change and biodiversity.

This publication introduces SLM and its principles and presents how good SLM practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina were documented, evaluated, selected and scaled through participatory land use planning processes. High demand for agricultural products and raw materials produced on land is under adverse social and economic conditions and a lack of adequate investment.

In a world grappling with the challenges of food insecurity, climate change, landscape degradation, and rural poverty, regreening offers a path forward, especially in dryland areas. The transformation of degraded landscapes—restoring productivity and increasing resilience through the widespread adoption of agroforestry and sustainable land management practices—can deliver food, climate, and livelihood benefits.
Table of contents:
Part I. Introduction
Part II. How and Where is Regreening Happening?
Part III. The Impacts Of Regreening

The review was conducted with the aim to provide guidance for future engagement / investments, in particular in the context of recent AU declarations on agriculture and on land restoration by NEPAD, GEF, TerrAfrica, the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahel and Sahara (GGWISS), UN agencies and other donors.
This paper provides an abridged summary of the findings for easier access by country policy / decision
makers, agencies, development partners and donors, as a basis for informing future interventions for scaling-
up sustainable land management (SLM).

These guidelines have been developed based on FAO’s and WOCAT’s extensive experience. The book draws, in particular, on WOCAT’s network and its database of SLM knowledge - as well as on WOC AT’s first overview book entitled ‘Where the land is greener’. These guidelines were implemented in the framework of the TerrAfrica partnership, whose main objective is to mainstream and upscale SLM in SSA, through the leveraging and harmonising of multisectoral investments at the local, country, subregional and regional levels.

Land is of multi-dimensional character. It is multi-scale, multi-functional, multi-sectorial, multi-actor based: it needs people from practice and research to interact as equal partners to make sense of research for sustainable land management. The kind of research needed to deal with this complexity and these challenges we term implementation-oriented research. With its many practical examples, this book explores alternatives to the often perceived ‘either – or’ choice between agricultural intensification on the one hand, and expansion of arable land on the other.

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 assessments have been carried
out in each of these countries to establish a reference against which to monitor changes and project
impacts, as well as to better target project activities and inform other stakeholders and restoration
initiatives in the eight countries.

As a farmer in northern Kenya, I came to understand the importance of dryland restoration. After moving to Kaijaido country in the south, I started an initiative to restore the land, increase food security and reduce poverty, supported by a grant from the East African Community with various activities supported by FAO and Yale University.

The West African Sahel is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, due to land degradation, dependence on rainfed farming, political instability, poor governance, food insecurity, terrorism, poor infrastructure, and limited technical capacity. This has particular impacts on the agricultural sector (Sissoko et al. 2011; Zougmoré et al. 2016).

The adoption of FMNR increased by 50% over 20 years; about 90% of all farmers now encourage natural regeneration on the land that they manage. The key to success is having local institutions that are respected and effective. The experience in Bankass shows that reforestation rates of at least 250 trees per hectare can be achieved by farmer managed natural regeneration on Sahelian agricultural lands, recreating an agroforestry parkland at a fraction of the cost of establishing conventional plantations.

Valuable lessons can be learned from smallholder farmers who have successfully protected and regenerated tree cover across agricultural landscapes in Senegal, with minimal reliance on tree nurseries, seedling distribution or tree planting. In the process, they have restored soil fertility to sustainably increase agricultural production.