SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 15: LIFE ON LAND

 

The rising global demand for food to feed the 9 billion people that will populate the planet by 2050 combined with the continuing environmental and land degradation underlines the urgency for achieving a transformation toward sustainable land use.

To ensure that no one is left behind we must endeavor to secure healthy and productive land.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides an opportunity to work globally towards this end.

Examples of nature’s contributions to people, often referred to as ecosystem services, include the provision of food, raw materials, cultural identity and support for physical, mental and emotional health.

Biodiversity enhances these services and indeed underpins many of them, e.g. pollination of crops.

However, declining biodiversity and degraded ecosystems driven by such external pressures as development, pollution, and land use change are threatening especially poor and vulnerable communities, as narrowing sources of food, medicine, fuel and clean water combined with land degradation and soil erosion create detrimental impacts upon subsistence lifestyles and smallholder farmers in particular.

Every minute, 23 hectares of arable land are lost due to drought and desertification.

The increased vulnerability to environment stresses, especially of the poor, women and children, can lead to an intensified competition for scarce natural resources and result in migration, instability and conflict.

Deforestation and desertification —caused by human activities and climate change— pose major challenges to sustainable development and have affected the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

Land grabbing in forest areas often leads to industrial-scale monocropping accompanied by pesticide use, as well as conflicts with local communities and the destruction of their way of life.

Soil loss and land degradation are a threat to the future of the regional economy and inclusive social development, and to the livelihoods of people living in poverty.

Efforts have been made to offset land degradation through more intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides (fungicides, herbicides and insecticides), with adverse consequences for soil and water quality.

Biotechnology helps to improve agriculture and combat hunger and malnutrition.

Applying more modern agricultural and livestock production processes in the region to increase production, generate income and employment, and limit the negative impact of current production patterns on the environment.

Develop more sustainable, healthy and diverse, low-input agricultural and food systems that, in addition to conserving and regenerating biodiversity, constitute more resilient, energy-efficient and socially just systems.

Promoting bio-economy-based activities would help to combine growth, social development and environmental protection.

The bio-economy fosters new ways of organizing the value chains associated with biodiversity (bio-chains) and the creation of a circular economy.

Reducing dependence on fossil fuels and promoting the production and knowledge-intensive use of biological resources, processes and principles for the sustainable supply of goods and services in all sectors of the economy (bioenergy farming and bio-inputs, food, fibres, health products, industrial products and bio-plastics).

Applying more modern agricultural and livestock production processes in the region to increase production, generate income and employment, and limit the negative impact of current production patterns on the environment.

Developing more sustainable, healthy and diverse, low-input agricultural and food systems in addition to conserving and regenerating biodiversity, constitute more resilient, energy-efficient and socially just systems.

 

Promoting bio-economy-based activities would help to combine growth, social development and environmental protection.

 

The bio-economy fosters new ways of organizing the value chains associated with biodiversity (bio-chains) and the creation of a circular economy. 

Recognizing the key role that scientific and technological knowledge can play in redefining the relationships between the agricultural sector, ecosystems and industry.

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