Responding to this challenge several gatherings of the scientific community took place during the period following Rio+20 in June 2012 and until SDGs adoption in September 2015. The first one was the 3rd international Conference on Drylands Deserts and Desertification (Sede Boqer, Israel, 12–15 November 2012) session on Operationalizing the Zero Net Land Degradation target, summarized by The ZNLD target – a tool for achieving LDNW (UNCCD 2013a) and resulting in several peer-reviewed papers (Gnacadja 2015; Chasek et al. 2015; Grainger 2015; Tal 2015; Stavi and Lal 2015; Nkonya and Anderson 2015). This conference was followed by the first Global Soil Week in Berlin, Germany, in November 2012 and the second in October 2013, both addressing the incorporation of ZNLD as target in one of the SDGs.