Delivering an enabling environment and multiple benefits for land degradation neutrality: Stakeholder perceptions and progress

Cameron Allen; Graciela Metternicht; Peter Verburg; Mariam Akhtar-Schuster; Marcelo Inacio da Cunha; Marioldy Sanchez Santivañez

doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2020.07.029

Delivering an enabling environment and multiple benefits for land degradation neutrality: Stakeholder perceptions and progress

Environ Sci Policy. 2020 Dec:114:109-118. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2020.07.029. Epub 2020 Aug 12.

Authors

Cameron Allen^{1

2}, Graciela Metternicht¹, Peter Verburg^{3

4}, Mariam Akhtar-Schuster⁵, Marcelo Inacio da Cunha⁶, Marioldy Sanchez Santivañez⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Changing Earth Centre, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.
² Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
³ Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
⁴ Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
⁵ DLR Project Management Agency, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 2, 10178, Berlin, Germany.
⁶ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Bonn, Germany.
⁷ AIDER, Lima, Peru.

Abstract

Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) was adopted by countries in 2015 as one of the targets of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As LDN is a relatively new concept there is an increasing need for evidence on the potential socio-economic and environmental benefits of LDN as well as how an enabling environment for implementing LDN measures can be developed. This paper summarises the results from a global survey of LDN stakeholders, and a review of national progress in target setting that was commissioned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2018. The study presents the perceptions of relevant stakeholders on the key components of an enabling environment for achieving and maintaining LDN (institutional, financial, policy/regulatory, and science-policy) as well as expectations of multiple benefits from its implementation. We also highlight key challenges and gaps in progress to date that are emerging from ongoing national target setting programs to implement LDN. The study finds that progress in implementing LDN has been widespread across countries. However there remains a lack of awareness of LDN and its key concepts along with high-level political buy-in. This may be impeding the integration of LDN into national development planning and budgeting processes where progress was assessed as limited. National capacities for securing land tenure and governance arrangements and integrated land use planning were perceived as comparatively low, further hampering the implementation of LDN. Despite these gaps, most stakeholders (>90 %) who participated in the global survey expected LDN to deliver a broad range of multiple benefits for human wellbeing, livelihoods and the natural environment. We argue that greater efforts are needed to raise awareness of LDN, educate core stakeholders in its concepts, enablers and benefits, raise its political profile, and provide evidence on national measures that will support implementation of LDN.

Keywords: Enabling environment; Governance; Land; Land degradation neutrality (LDN); Sustainable development goals (SDGs).