The negative consequences of human actions have brought our world and our future to a dangerous crossroads: will we be able to avert the worst impacts of climate change? How can we stop and reverse the loss of fertile soil, biodiversity, and other natural capital that supplies all our food and other basic needs? Where are the jobs for millions of unemployed young people?

The current context in the Sahel-Saharan Band is clearly dominated by recurrent issues of desertification, land degradation and climate change.

For the African continent, the ability to manage trade-offs at a landscape scale has huge potential to influence the future of migration and conflict, as well as the future of land resources, food security and biodiversity. Integrated land management can act as an accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and can be considered an essential element of a sustainable strategy to address the root causes of irregular migration.

In the effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to food, health, water, and climate, an increase in pressure on land is highly likely. To avoid further land degradation and promote land restoration, multifunctional use of land is needed within the boundaries of the soil-water system. In addition, awareness-raising, a change in stakeholders’ attitudes, and a change in economics are essential. The attainment of a balance between the economy, society, and the biosphere calls for a holistic approach.

Indonesia has a large area of degraded land, i.e. 30 million ha, which could potentially be utilized for biofuel plantations. The leguminous tree pongamia (Pongamia pinnata syn. Milettia pinnata) could be utilized to produce biofuel while restoring degraded land. Here, we explore the potential of pongamia as a source of biofuel and for restoring degraded land in Indonesia. Pongamia occurs across Indonesia, in Sumatra, Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and Maluku. It grows to a height of 15–20 m and can grow in a range of environmental conditions.

Land restoration has received increased attention recently as a tool to counteract negative externalities of unsustainable land management on human well-being. This is reflected in targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Framework of the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). However, the implications of these targets for land use, especially considering their potential conflict with growing food production demands, are largely unexplored.

Almost one-quarter of the world’s land area has been degraded over the past 50 years because of soil erosion, salinization, peatland and wetland drainage, and forest degradation. The resulting damage, in terms of lost ecosystem goods and services, costs the world an estimated US$6.3 trillion a year. Almost a quarter of the world’s land area has been degraded over the past 50 years.
This is the result of soil erosion, salinization, peatland and wetland drainage, and forest degradation.

Why is it so important to restore degraded landscapes? It’s actually very simple.
We rely on healthy ecosystems to provide us with our food, water, clean air, climate stability, social and economic wealth; even our happiness and well-being. We only have to look at history to see the devastating consequences of not valuing or understanding ecosystems: whole civilizations have vanished after overexploiting their natural resources.

Landscape governance relates to how rules and decision-making address overlapping claims and conflicting interests in the landscape. It also relates to how rules and decision-making encourage synergies among stakeholders and stimulate the sustainable management of the landscape. In order to achieve sustainable landscape development, it is crucial to understand how governance processes are organized, and how this influences the decisions and behaviour of actors in the landscape.

In the last decade, there have been a number of global/regional targets and initiatives to halt and reverse land degradation and restore degraded land. Starting in 2010, these include the CBD’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets, one of which aims to restore at least 15% of degraded ecosystems; the Bonn Challenge and its regional initiatives to restore more than 150 million hectares; and most recently the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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.

Becoming land degradation neutral is not simply about restoring degraded lands. It is about self interest making sure the land can still provide food and fresh water for us, our children, and to the third and fourth generations. It is about giving every child, from Mongolia to Afghanistan and from Ethiopia to China, the fighting chance for a better life. If this all sounds too good to be true, read this book.