Our land resources are the basis of all terrestrial ecosystems. Healthy land and soil is biodiverse, stores carbon, provides food, and holds water thereby reducing the risk of droughts and floods. Land is life, it is the ground we stand on.

”When resources are degraded, we start competing for them. So one way to promote peace is to promote sustainable management and equitable distribution of resources.” - Wangari Maathai, UNCCD‘s flagship publication, the Global Land Outlook.

The Group on Earth Observations Land Degradation Neutrality Initiative (GEO-LDN) is a stakeholder-driven initiative that was launched during GEO Week 2018 in Kyoto, Japan. It brings together Earth observation data providers, governments and practitioners. The development of minimum data quality standards and analytical tools, as well as catering to capacity development needs strengthens the ability to monitor and report on LDN, using remote sensing and data collected on site. The initiative is pleased to announce that it will be running a training course Perspectives on LDN – Monitoring and beyond from 30-31 October during GEO Week 2022 in Accra.

The training addresses practitioners and policy makers who work, for example, in land use planning or related fields. Participants of the training will receive an introduction to the resource “land” through a LDN perspective. They will learn about the strategic framework of the work of the GEO-LDN Initiative, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 and its sub-indicators. Insights into the mandate of the initiative, as well as an overview of data, tools, and guidance for reporting on SDG indicator 15.3.1 will be provided. Moreover, a glimpse into the GEO-LDN Initiative’s “Federated System” through practical examples followed by a thorough hands-on demo of the tool “Trends.Earth” in QGIS will conclude the training.