All publications and documents

When land is degraded and becomes scarce, women and girls are uniquely and differentially affected due to the major role they play in agriculture and food production, their heavy reliance on forests, their vulnerability to poverty, their lack of education, and their typically weak legal protections and social status. Mainstreaming gender responsiveness into land-restoration practice has two main…

To become more resilient, conventional food systems must change. This is vital in the face of growing challenges such as climate change, economic crises, conflict, and major events including the COVID-19 pandemic. This working paper presents one overarching conclusion to building resilient food systems that contribute to land restoration.

Perverse incentives are policies or practices that encourage resource uses that lead to the degradation of biological diversity. They include subsidies, policies and the lack of regulation, and market failures leading to under- or overpricing of products. This working paper categorizes perverse incentives, discusses how to measure land degradation and the effect that perverse incentives have, and…

This working paper describes the interconnections (the “nexus”) between land tenure and land restoration, and how secure tenure is needed to avoid, reduce or reverse land degradation. It draws on case studies in 12 countries, as well as the wider literature, to show the importance of tenure rights in restoration work. At the core of the suggested approach to restoration are concerns about how to…

Urbanization and ecosystems are profoundly intertwined. As urbanization takes over more land and has greater impacts on ecosystems, and as towns and cities of all sizes demand ecosystem services (food, fiber, water, energy, etc.), flows of people, goods, services, information, capital, etc. define and drive urban–rural linkages in complex and intricate patterns.

Young people all over the world participate in both policy and action to avoid, minimize and reverse land and ecosystem degradation. The youth make their voice heard on multiple restoration policy platforms and by taking action on themes such as climate change and biodiversity. But their ability to act as agents of change in restoration is influenced by their geographical, biophysical and socio…