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.
Federal investments in ecosystem restoration projects protect Federal trusts, ensure public health and safety, and preserve and enhance essential ecosystem services. These investments also generate business activity and create jobs.
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.
Land take, or the change from non-artificial to artificial land cover, reflects on-going and often conflicting claims on land. Some of the land that is 'taken' for urban development is covered with an impervious surface, which severely hampers ecosystem functioning and the related delivery of ecosystem services.
This chapter sets out to present a short review of (i) the general context of land degradation under the framework of UNCCD – the international convention on desertification with a specific focus on Land Degradation Neutrality, and (ii) examples of the main processes responsible for soil degradation (e.g.
States of ecological maturity and temporal trends of drylands in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia north of 28 N are reported for 1998–2008. The input data were Normalized Difference Vegetation Index databases and corresponding climate fields, at a spatial resolution of 1 km and a temporal resolution of one month. States convey opposing dynamics of human exploitation and ecological succession.
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.
From the content:
2 Drylands and the benefits of restoration 5
2.1 What are drylands? 5
2.2 The importance of forests and trees in drylands 6
2.3 Key challenges in drylands 8
2.4 Restoration in drylands 13
3 Guidelines for policymakers and other decision-makers: establishing a strong enabling environment 19
Agricultural practices have adapted over millennia to regional and local variations in weather conditions. But as the effects of climate change become more noticeable, further adaptation becomes essential to ensure food security in Europe.
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.
