This paper seeks to provide an overview of the relationships between food insecurity, land degradation and desertification, and its antithesis, food security and sustainable land management. It places particular focus on the worlds drylands (i.e. arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas), but situates the review within the wider context of global food systems and the macro-processes that drive land degradation and desertification. It is revealed that food insecurity can be attributed to a range of demand-side and supply-side causes, which include political, economic, social and environmental factors. Land degradation and desertification are shown to be exogenous issues that can amplify and aggravate food insecurity. Addressing desertification, including land, soil, water and plant degradation, can facilitate or ease the food security dilemma, but may not completely solve it in the presence of other underlying causes. ; Fil: Stringer, Lindsay C. University Of Leeds; Reino Unido ; Fil: Akhtar Schuster, Mariam. Universitat Hamburg; Alemania ; Fil: Marques, Maria Jose. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; España ; Fil: Amiraslani, Farshad. University Of Tehran; Irán ; Fil: Quatrini, Simone. International Fund for Agricultural Development; Italia ; Fil: Abraham, Elena Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; Argentina
The purpose of this report is to identify, map, and evaluate the most relevant European policies seen to influence permanent grassland (PG) management. To accomplish this, an interdisciplinary, crossnational team from the UK, Switzerland, Spain, Czech Republic, and Sweden reviewed over 50 in-depth policy frameworks. With direction from expert stakeholders and a review of the policy landscape, we identified the most relevant policy instruments influencing PGs across five different biogeographic regions in Europe (Alpine, Atlantic, Boreal, Continental, and Mediterranean). The mapping of each country's policy mix was guided inter-alia by a 'cascade framework' to illustrate the entry points, intermediary actors, mechanisms and pathways through which policies deliver their intended effects on PGs. This entailed an in-depth analysis of publicly available government sources documenting the aims, objectives, targets, monitoring systems, outputs and outcomes of each policy instrument. In total, 24 policies were mapped using 50 different criteria, with 15 of the policies unique to the case study countries. This resulted in an extensive excel database of over 3400 unique cells containing rich qualitative data. The excel data were coded in a consistent manner across the country teams so that they could be compared, synthesized, and used to identify patterns in the policy mix and logic of intervention. We show, for instance, that across Europe, the dominant policy logic uses regulations and incentives to influence farmer adoption of desired landscape compositions. This directly influences, but does not guarantee, the range of ecosystem services (ES) that are possible from the landscape. At the same time, we discovered a lack of policies targeting consumer demand for PG ecosystem services and only a few designed to drive sustainable PG management by directly promoting the value of PGs with beneficiaries. To complement the policy mapping, stakeholders' assessed the perceived effectiveness of the policy mix in each country. This evaluation included over 50 interviews with key stakeholders across Europe representing government, academia, farmers, and special interests, and covered perceptions of democracy, legitimacy, relevance, efficiency and impact in relation to the effectiveness of policies relevant to the management of PG. Our findings reveal generally positive perceptions of grassland policy effectiveness across Europe, with special interest groups being the least positive and governments the most. The in-depth country case studies reveal striking similarities, as well as differences between countries and stakeholder groups, which are illustrative of the problems, challenges, and barriers confronting policy effectiveness. We conclude this report by offering insights and policy implications. In particular, we suggest that the following four points are taken into consideration to improve the PG policy landscape: 1) Reduce complexity and administrative burden to make policies more understandable and accessible. 2) Require stakeholder involvement when developing strategic plans and assessing policy. 3) Encourage consideration of trade-offs between PG management and ES delivery, by designing policies to explicitly target the interaction between landscape structures and ES (or target them in parallel). 4) Encourage a balance of policy logic, by moving away from targeting farmers with regulation or subsidies to manage the landscape towards targeting consumer demand for ES (through information) and the value of ES (such as direct payments for regulating and cultural services).
International audience ; With global science-policy conventions for biodiversity and ecosystem services in place, much effort goes into monitoring and reporting on the progress toward policy targets. As conservation actions happen locally, can such global monitoring and reporting efforts effectively guide conservation. actions at subnational level? In this paper we explore three different perspectives: policy reporting for policy implementation; scientific knowledge for empowerment and actions; and from past trends to influencing the future. Using these three perspectives, we identify ways forward for both decision makers and scientists on how to engage, inform and empower a larger diversity of actors who make decisions on the future of biodiversity and ecosystem services at multiple scales Without doubt, scientific understanding of why and where biodiversity and ecological resilience are degrading is advancing [1",2]. In addition, there is enormous investment and engagement by both decision makers and scientists to maintain and raise the environmental stakes on international policy agendas in the face of worldwide economic, social and political challenges. Global biodiversity targets as set by the signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 (the Aichi targets), the 2013 European Union strategy on adaptation to climate change, and the Sustainable Development Goals, require short to medium term action in translating such targets to local conservation actions [e.g. 3], for instance at the level of protected areas, watersheds or a village [4]. With the first thematic, regional and global assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) being published [5,6] or steadily advancing, it is timely to reflect on how the substantial scientific and political investments in monitoring and reporting on progress toward global biodiversity and ecosystem service targets can be used effectively for conservation actions. Taking the perspective of ...
