All publications and documents

Drought is one of the biggest worries for a farmer, sometimes threatening entire harvests, but a European Union (EU)-funded project is using the latest gene science to see whether the worst effects of water shortages could be averted with drought-tolerant plants. The project, WATBIO, is studying how some plants can survive with less water than others. Backed by €9 million in EU funding, the…

Environmental management - Guidelines for establishing good practices for combatting land degradation and desertification- Part 1: Good practices framework ( see also Environmental management - Guidelines for establishing good practices for combatting land degradation and desertification - Part 2: Regional case studies) published in 2022 , ref. in our catalogue as well. …

Across the globe, women make up a large part of agricultural labor: In Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015, they represented 40 % of the agricultural labor force. In some developing countries, their contributions exceed 50%. Closing the gender gap could increase yields on women-run farms by 20-30%. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5- 4%. But women own…

Deserts are not static. In a way, they’re like living things, expanding and shrinking with the passage of time, their borders always moving and changing. This is a perfectly natural process, and is usually not a problem. However, recent years have introduced a new and worrying issue: the world’s deserts are growing too much, too quickly. This phenomenon, known as “desertification,”…

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,…

Land is a major overarching theme connecting the three Rio Conventions covering climate change (UNFCCC), biodiversity (CBD), and desertification and land degradation (UNCCD). Land management plays a key role in attaining their goals and targets. Furthermore, a large number of the Sustainable Development Goals have strong links to land and land management, and trade-offs between sustainability…