Land is a vital natural resource provisioning for food, water and air for the millions of people who are depending on agriculture. However, land degradation has accelerated during the past two centuries due to combined pressures on land by agricultural and livestock production, urbanisation, and extreme climate events such as droughts. Continued land use change, unsustainable agricultural practices and climate change may put our human well-being in danger and, most of all, be a great threat to entire ecosystem services and biodiversity. The economic costs of desertification and land
degradation are estimated at USD 490 billion per year while impacting an estimated 3.2 billion people’s health and livelihoods.

This is not an exception to Europe and Central Asia (ECA) where there are over one billion people living across over 50 countries with diverse socio-ecological conditions – different climates, landscapes, and topographies – experiencing livelihood-threatening environmental challenges.
This “Overview of land degradation neutrality (LDN) in Europe and Central Asia (ECA)” has been prepared in response to urgent needs for awareness on the up-to-date LDN situation in the ECA region and a coherent regional strategic approach within the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) 2018–2030 Strategic Framework to achieve national LDN targets and sustainable land management. Furthermore, achieving a land degradation neutral world by 2030 is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 (Life on land), particularly target 15.3.

Along with a 2-day workshop organised on 20–21 October 2021 by the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this publication presents basic concepts and principles of LDN, the international landscape for LDN, a regional overview on progress towards LDN commitment, an analysis of LDN-related biophysical and social indicators, as well as recommendations. It also presents a compilation of the 17 fact sheets published separately on LDN status for each of the 17 countries included and the LDN Decision Support System (DSS) developed for the region.

This report presents an overview of the status of land degradation neutrality in Europe and Central Asia region, including a national overview for 17 countries in the region: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. This report serves as a reference for the region ́s progress towards achieving LDN, increasing awareness and supporting countries with technical expertise in achieving it.
The report is organised into four sections. The first section is an introduction to the concept and principles of LDN and its link to FAO’s Strategic Framework. LDN, alongside biodiversity conservation, promotes the sustainable use of natural resources and ecosystems and provides a significant benefit to climate change mitigation and adaptation. FAO’s Strategic Framework is linked with the LDN framework, serving as the principal basis for human livelihoods and well-
being, including the supply of food, freshwater and multiple other ecosystem services, as well as biodiversity.

The second section presents the international landscape on LDN in the region. The concept of LDN is relatively new, but it has been supported by many organisations. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Global Environmental Fund (GEF), the Global Soil Partnership (GSP), and the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies(WOCAT) represent complementary organisations that play a key role globally for achieving LDN.
The section explains the partnership between these organisations, UNCCD in the region, and each organisation’s role, function and relevant experiences in the region.
The third section presents an overview of the status and progress towards land degradation neutrality in Europe and Central Asia Region based on the analysis of the countries’ reported data to UNCCD, satellite-derived biophysical indicators, and socio-economic data. This section also presents a Regional LDN Decision Support System that was developed as part of this initiative to facilitate access to key statistics, data sets, maps and interactive functionalities to support countries in achieving LDN.
Finally, the report ends with recommendations and 17 factsheets published separately with national statistics, maps and data on countries’ LDN-related indicators and efforts.

This publication is an output of the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia, which shows how important Land Degradation is to the region. Land is the primary source of natural capital from which we derive a wide range of ecosystem services in connection with food security, however, land degradation has been accelerating in many parts of the world, threatening billions of people’s livelihood and health. To address this challenge and in the context of the SDGs, many countries set voluntary national LDN targets to avoid, reduce and reverse such degradation.

With the coordination of Carolina Rizzi Starr, the authors César Luis García, Ingrid Teich, Hernán Gonzalez, Bradley Paterson and Carolina Rizzi Starr collected, analysed and organised all the information here presented.
We also would like to thank our colleagues in the FAO country offices for helping us organising the meeting with the UNCCD focal points, and the focal point and their teams for their time, valuable information shared and support.
In addition, we would like to thank Jamal Annagylyjova and Munazza Naqvi for providing value information on the UNCCD work in the region, Sungyeon Park for supporting with inputs, reference verification and data checking; Eugenia Raviolo for programming and improving the App; Tori Patterson for proofreading the document and for giving a unit to the report; and Nina Barrois for the design and layout.