Key Messages

Land in the Balance

Of nine planetary boundaries used to define a ‘safe operating space for humanity’, four have already been exceeded: climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change, and geochemical cycles. These breaches are directly linked to human-induced desertification, land degradation, and drought.

Roughly USD 44 trillion of economic output – more than half of global annual GDP – is moderately or highly reliant on natural capital. Yet governments, markets, and societies rarely account for the true value of all nature’s services that underpin human and environmental health. These include climate and water regulation, disease and pest control, waste decomposition and air purification, as well as recreation and cultural amenities.

Moving to a Crisis Footing

Conserving, restoring, and using our land resources sustainably is a global imperative: one that requires moving to a crisis footing.

Land restoration is essential and urgently needed. It must be integrated with allied measures to meet future energy needs while drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions; address food insecurity and water scarcity while shifting to more sustainable production and consumption; and accelerate a transition to a regenerative, circular economy that reduces waste and pollution.

Setting the Agenda

The international community has pledged to restore one billion hectares of degraded land. Restoration is a proven and cost-effective solution to help reverse climate change and biodiversity loss.

Land restoration is broadly understood as a continuum of sustainable land and water management practices that can be applied to conserve or ‘rewild’ natural areas, ‘up-scale’ nature-positive food production in rural landscapes, and ‘green’ urban areas, infrastructure, and supply chains.

Making Land the Focus

Land and ecosystem restoration will help slow global warming, reduce the risk, scale, frequency, and intensity of disasters (e.g., pandemics, drought, floods), and facilitate the recovery of critical biodiversity habitat and ecological connectivity to avoid extinctions and restore the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.

Transforming Food Systems

Making our food systems sustainable and resilient would be a significant contribution to the success of the global land, biodiversity, and climate agendas.

Globally, food systems are responsible for 80% of deforestation, 70% of freshwater use, and are the single greatest cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss.

At the same time, soil health and biodiversity below ground – the source of almost all our food calories – has been largely neglected by the industrial agricultural revolution of the last century. Intensive monocultures and the destruction of forests and other ecosystems for food and commodity production generate the bulk of carbon emissions associated with land use change. Nitrous oxides from fertilizer use and methane emitted by ruminant livestock comprise the largest and most potent share of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

Putting People Front and Center

Land restoration is about creating sustainable livelihood opportunities for people – small- scale farmers, indigenous peoples and local communities, businesses and entrepreneurs, women and youth – to boost incomes, secure food and water supplies, and make individuals and communities less vulnerable.

More inclusive and responsible governance can facilitate the shift to sustainable land use and management practices by building human and social capital. Increased transparency and accountability are prerequisites for integrated land use planning and other administrative tools that can help deliver multiple benefits at various scales while managing competing demands.

Safeguarding Land Rights

Land restoration provides unique entry points to apply human rights-based approaches that improve natural resource use and environmental management, especially when they are linked to existing national commitments under international treaties and agreements.

In 2019, the UNCCD adopted a decision which “invites Parties to ensure that measures to combat desertification, land degradation, and drought are carried out in a non-discriminatory and participatory way so that they promote equal tenure rights and access to land for all, in particular vulnerable and marginal groups”.

In 2021, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that “calls upon all States to conserve, protect and restore healthy ecosystems and biodiversity and to ensure their sustainable management and use by applying a human rights-based approach that emphasizes participation, inclusion, transparency, and accountability in natural resource management”.

Redirecting Investment and Incentives

Redirecting public spending towards regenerative land management solutions offers a significant opportunity to align private sector investment with longer-term societal goals – not only for food, fuel, and raw materials, but also for green and blue infrastructure for drought and flood mitigation, renewable energy provision, biodiversity conservation, and water and waste recycling.

Territorial and landscape approaches can leverage public and private financing for large-scale or multi-sector restoration initiatives by allowing diverse groups of stakeholders to establish partnerships that pool resources, aggregate project activities, and share costs.

These collaborative approaches will make land restoration initiatives more effective and attractive to donors and investors. It is unrealistic to expect developing countries to cover the entire bill for a ‘just transition’ to a restoration economy and climate-resilient future. Extra-budgetary support will be needed – from corporate investment, climate finance, debt relief, and donor/development aid to a range of innovative financial instruments that explicitly include environmental, social, and governance criteria.

Working Together to Restore Land

The United Nations, acting as one, has a unique capacity to motivate the global community, stimulate a worldwide movement, and help secure finance for land restoration at scale. With its convening power, the UN can help build the evidence base needed to assist countries in creating incentives that shift attitudes and behavior towards regenerative, climate-resilient, and nature-positive solutions.

The UN General Assembly has affirmed that combating desertification, land degradation, and drought – and achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) – is an effective pathway to accelerate progress towards achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.14 The UNCCD and many global partners are championing the land restoration agenda, using a wide range of evidence-based strategies and practices that can be tailored to local contexts and replicated at multiple scales.

Activating the Land Restoration Agenda

Ambitious land restoration targets must be backed by clear action plans and sustained financing. Countries that are disproportionately responsible for the climate, biodiversity, and environmental crises must do more to support developing countries as they restore their land resources and make these activities central to building healthier and more resilient societies.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is galvanizing indigenous peoples and local communities, governments, the private sector, and civil society as part of a global movement to undertake all types of restoration, across all scales, marshalling all possible resources. This powerful 10-year ambition aims to transform land and water management practices to meet the demands of the 21st century while eradicating poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.