United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
| The establishment of a global target on LDN within the SDG framework is also expected. This will provide a way forward for the future activities of UNCCD and certainly encourage the Parties to the UNCCD to take a bold step toward a ‘Target Setting Approach’ as a timely response to the global request of saving our future. – Dr. SHINW on Sop -Ministry of Korea forest services |
The UNCCD 2021 report focused on importance of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) states that, by 2050, crop yields are estimated to decrease by 10% globally due to land degradation and climate change, with some regions suffering up to a 50% reduction. Furthermore, land degradation is projected to fuel an estimated 30% increase in world food prices over the next 25 years. Given the expected growth in global population and food demand by 2050, conserving, sustainably managing, and restoring land resources will be essential in the transition to sustainable food production, requiring at least a 75% reduction in current yield gaps.
Land degradation neutrality, Food Security, Sustainable agriculture, Nature-Positive Production
| The greatest prospects for reversing land degradation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss lie in transforming how we use and manage human, financial and natural capital to produce, distribute, and consume food. |
In 2015, the UNCCD adopted Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 15.3 which aims to combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought, and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation neutral world by 2030. This SDG target is recognized as the central vehicle to drive implementation of the UNCCD as well as accelerate progress towards numerous other SDGs. The report defines land degradation neutrality (LDN) and stated that LDN targets help countries to identify and adopt a broad range of measures to avoid or reduce land degradation while improving gender equality and livelihoods. These measures include sustainable land and water management practices as well as integrated land use planning. When combined with localized action to reverse past degradation, through land rehabilitation and restoration, countries are more likely to achieve ‘no net loss’ in their healthy and productive land.
Today, investing in land restoration offers great potential to create new jobs and initiate a green economic recovery. Our current food systems – activities from crop and meat production, through processing and distribution to the point of purchase and consumption – are often environmentally destructive, vulnerable to shocks and stresses, and surprisingly inefficient in meeting the nutritional needs of the global population. The UNCCD has developed a scientific conceptual framework, technical guidance, and practical tools to help countries assess the current state of their land resources, identify the drivers of degradation, and formulate the most appropriate response actions.
This report analysis the LDN reports which include 25 categories of response actions aimed at transforming food systems through implementing the following-
- LDN response actions aimed at improving governance
- LDN response actions aimed at building resilient agroecosystem
- LDN response actions aimed at managing demand-side drivers
- LDN response actions related to more efficient and equitable supply chains
- LDN response actions related to more effective management of risk
Many of the current global challenges are related to our food system, particularly the way that land is used and managed to produce food. Among the most pressing are the needs to mitigate and adapt to climate change, protect biodiversity, combat desertification and land degradation, and reduce yield gaps. With customer choices and supply chains being extravagant and food production, food waste being highly inefficient, it contributes to more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions while rapidly depleting the Earth’s finite natural capital, namely soil, water, and biodiversity. Land degradation directly undermines our ability to deliver food and nutritional security. Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) provides significant assistance and additional benefits for mitigation and adaptation in this rapidly climate changing world, it helphalting and reversing land degradation as it transform land from being a source of greenhouse gas emissions to a carbon sink, by increasing carbon stocks in soils and vegetation.
Download full report from the website:
References of work:
Chromeextension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/content/documents/tech_brief_land_degradation_neutrality_revised_2017_2.pdf
chromeextension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://www1.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Environment%20and%20Energy/sustainable%20land%20management/Achieving%20Land%20Degradation%20Neutrality.pdf
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers16-11/010068507.pdf
