A recent article written by the report authors and published by IISD's SDG Knowledge Hub presents a UNU-EHS and UNCCD report examining land and water management approaches for sustainable land management and land degradation neutrality. Land degradation neutrality aims to balance loss with restoration to maintain land health and productivity. The article highlights the report’s strategies regarding environmental and social challenges such as land degradation, food insecurity, climate change and biodiversity loss. It also addresses the seven approaches the report presents: agroecology, climate-smart agriculture, conservation agriculture, forest landscape restoration, integrated agriculture, regenerative agriculture and rewilding, using criteria categorized into ecosystem health, food security, human well-being and cross-cutting socioeconomic aspects.
The article emphasizes that aligning these approaches with sustainable land management and land degradation neutrality contributes to multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including combating desertification (SDG 15.3), promoting gender equality (SDGs 5.5 and 5.a), enhancing land productivity (SDG 2.4), and climate action (SDG 13). These findings will be presented at COP 16 to the UNCCD in December 2024. The full IISD article is available here.
