This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and costs of restoring forests and landscapes in countries around the world, demonstrating how smart policies and innovative financing can help governments meet their restoration targets. The authors find that finance, both public and private, for restoration is inadequate for seven reasons, and offers solutions to these financial barriers.

The publication also outlines the main steps involved in carrying out economic analyses, bringing to light the full value of ecosystem services and social benefits as well as the costs of degradation. These insights can help governments to develop policy instruments and financing mechanisms that promote restoration on the ground. They can also help stakeholders incorporate environmental and social benefits into financing decisions.

Climate Focus’ How Land Use Can Contribute to the 1.5°C Goal of the Paris Agreement develops a roadmap of action for the land-use sector to meet its necessary contribution to the Paris Agreement.

The analysis relies on a modelling of land-sector development trajectories optimizing least-cost pathways, a bottom-up assessment of mitigation potentials, and a correction of potentials for political feasibility. The Global Biosphere Management Integrated Assessment Model, a partial-equilibrium model developed by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, formed the basis of our modelling. We determined the 40 countries with the highest technical mitigation potential and assessed the feasibility of mitigation action based on their political will and ability to realize this potential. Finally, we outlined 10 priority actions to reduce the land-use sector’s contribution to global warming. The actions range from avoided deforestation, restoration of forests, to diet shifts and reduced food waste.

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Many restoration projects seek to raise capital, but restoration leaders often lack knowledge of the investment process. The New Restoration Economy—part of the Global Restoration Initiative at the World Resources Institute—has found that successful efforts to attract private capital involve four steps. The roadmap elaborates on each of these four steps in turn and is based on our global experience in restoration and our insider perspective on the investment process.

Forests and trees support sustainable agriculture. They stabilize soils and climate, regulate water flows, give shade and shelter, and provide a habitat for pollinators and the natural predators of agricultural pests. They also contribute to the food security of hundreds of millions of people, for whom they are important sources of food, energy and income. Yet, agriculture remains the major driver of deforestation globally, and agricultural, forestry and land policies are often at odds. The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) 2016 shows that it is possible to increase agricultural productivity and food security while halting or even reversing deforestation, highlighting the successful efforts of Costa Rica, Chile, the Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Tunisia and Viet Nam. Integrated land-use planning is the key to balancing land uses, underpinned by the right policy instruments to promote both sustainable forests and agriculture.

Cambodia is a country rich in natural resources that sustain the wellbeing of the nation's population and contribute to the country's economy. It has the largest areas of contiguous and intact forests in mainland Southeast Asia. Millions of people in Cambodia, many rural and poor, depend directly on the natural environment for their daily basic food, water, energy needs and income generation.

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Source: WWF-Cambodia

Integrated landscape initiatives often involve multi-stakeholder platforms. These are meant to enable discussions, negotiations and joint planning between stakeholders from various sectors in a given landscape. With growing investmentsn such platforms, there is a need for simple and affordable methods to aid their planning, monitoring and evaluation (PME). This report presents such a method, providing practical guidelines for participatory PME workshops based on three tools.

This report provides an introduction to land evaluation systems, strategies and tools necessary for “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The text focuses strongly on how to better match land use with its sustainable potential, in order to reduce the amount of land required to meet human needs, minimize land degradation, and cost-effectively restore already degraded lands. The report provides information that private landowners can use to increase long-term productivity and profitability, while at the same time addressing global objectives defined through land-related Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly 15.3 (land degradation neutrality).

This scientific report investigates the link between human activities and erosion in the Mekong Delta. It concludes that hydroelectric dams and sand mining are causing considerable, and possibly unrecoverable, erosion damage.

This guide is designed to stimulate and provide a clear process for the use of maps in cross-sectoral collaborations to locate, design and monitor interventions in rural landscapes.

Aimed at sustainable land management researchers and practitioners, the method presented here uses photographs to track land-use changes in order to evaluate the progress and effectiveness of specific management practices. The user guide includes an overview of ground-based photo-monitoring, its capabilities and limitations and provides suggestions for those interested in adopting the methodology.

This manual will aid trainers of sustainable land management (SLM) professionals to organize and conduct effective courses on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) from an integrated landscape management perspective.

This brief draws on the findings and key discussions from the 'Workshop on Valuing and Accounting for the Environment in Asia,' which was held in Bangkok 8-10 October, 2013. The brief was compiled by the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). The Core Environment Program provided funding support for the workshop.

Global cropland is expanding. Changing trends in both the production and consumption of land-based products are increasing pressure on land resources across the globe. This report discusses the need and options to balance consumption with sustainable production. It focuses on land-based products (food, fuels and fibre) and describes methods which enable countries to determine whether their consumption levels exceed sustainable supply capacities. Strategies and measures are outlined which will allow adjusting the policy framework to balance consumption with these capacities.

This sector assessment, strategy, and road map highlights the Government of Myanmar’s plans and strategies for addressing priority needs for the agriculture, natural resources, and environment sector and identifies possible preliminary areas of international assistance. It assesses key sector development needs by analyzing the strengths, constraints and weaknesses, various risks, and potential threats, as well as the opportunities, including further evolving the development partnership with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).