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Restoration of degraded land can create vast bioenergy crop potential, without constraining food crops or other land use options. This presents an important opportunity for African countries to develop modern, sustainable bioenergy from rapidly growing wood crops at the same time as pursuing ambitious forest landscape restoration initiatives. This study from the International…

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…

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,”…

By Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Chairman of the Advisory Board of CCSI, University Professor at Columbia University, and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Think of land use as the most important bridge between the SDGs. Farm land is the key to the survival of millions of smallholder farmers. Land is the key to our food supply. Land rights determine social…

STOCKHOLM (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Experts met in Stockholm this week to assess progress on securing land rights for indigenous people and local communities and how businesses connect to them. More than half of land rights conflicts in the developing world are not resolved, pitting companies, governments and businesses against indigenous communities, according to research…

Becoming land degradation neutral is not simply about restoring degraded lands. It is about self interest making sure the land can still provide food and fresh water for us, our children, and to the third and fourth generations. It is about giving every child, from Mongolia to Afghanistan and from Ethiopia to China, the fighting chance for a better life. If this all sounds too good to be true,…