As vital to our existence as air or water, land is one of our greatest shared assets – and the degradation of that land is one of our most pressing common challenges.
Unchecked land degradation threatens not only human wellbeing, but that of the entire planet, contributing to the acceleration of climate change and biodiversity loss. Today, with a quarter of our land already degraded and almost half the global population directly affected by land degradation, we are losing this precious resource at a time when we can least afford the social, economic or environmental impacts of this loss.
The continued wellbeing of both people and planet relies on our ability to protect, manage and restore our land more quickly than we degrade it. The stories in this book provide a timely reminder of how local and global collaboration to achieve land degradation neutrality can tip the balance in our favor, offering a foundation on which to build a healthy, equitable and prosperous future.
