Land degradation and desertification are among the biggest environmental challenges of our time. In the last 40 years, we lost nearly a third of the world’s arable farmland due to erosion, just as the number of people to be fed from it almost doubled. That’s why the UN General Assembly declared 2015 as the International Year of Soils. And the good news is that this new report shows that while Africa remains the most severely a«ected region, the benefit of taking action across the continent outweighs the cost of implementing it: not just by a little, but by a factor of seven.

As the world’s population continues to rise, there is
an ever increasing demand for our land to produce
a diverse range of products such as food, timber,
and fuel. Our growing need for these goods is
leading to higher levels of competition between
different land uses and, as a result, land users. Not
only is the quantity of land available for production
under current technical and economic conditions
limited, but there is also growing evidence that the
quality of our land is degrading (Safriel, U. N. 2007;

Jordanian rangelands are a source of valued livestock produce, carbon storage, biodiversity, and medicinal plants. They also serve as watersheds that receive rainfall, yield surface water, and replenish groundwater throughout the area east and south of the western Jordan highlands. Appropriate land management, which is currently lacking, can protect and maximize these services for society. With the acceleration of desertification, land degradation and drought during the twenty-first century in the arid and semi-arid regions of Jordan, these services are becoming jeopardized.

The Kelka forest in the Mopti region of Mali is important for the provision of ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and maintenance of the hydrological cycle. The Kelka forest area occupies more than 300, 000 hectares with 15
villages within and around its boundaries. The forest resources and soil fertility of the forest are in continuous decline due to a combination of climatic and human induced factors. For example, the availability of firewood has halved

Soil erosion and deposition values were estimated using pixel based landscape information and the Unit Stream Power Erosion Deposition (USPED) model, which works with the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) parameters. The USPED model was adapted to Ethiopian conditions based on evidence from the Soil Conservation Research Programme, and calibrated and validated using data from former research stations as well as the Abbay (Blue Nile) Basin. Additionally, some of the USLE parameters were reduced in order to achieve a satisfactory approximation of sediment loss for the Abbay Basin.

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).

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.