Strategies and policies to reach a land-degradation neutral world

Despite the difficulties in quantifying the extent and degree of land degradation or restoration, evidence shows that continued land degradation will be an impediment to meeting several SDGs. The United Nations states that it aims for land degradation neutrality (LDN) which in 2015 became firmly established as an agreed-upon objective in the realm of international environmental politics. First, as part of the SDGs whose Target 15.3 calls to “combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradationneutral world” by 2030 (UNGA, 2015). The Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) took the decision to align the implementation of the Convention with SDG 15.3 and invited its Parties to set voluntary LDN targets (UNCCD, 2015). From that point onwards, the key question is how to implement these global aspirations at the national level and what is needed to operationalize the LDN concept and translate it into concrete strategies to meet LDN at scale...