According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), land degradation neutrality (LDN) is “a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services to enhance food security remain stable, or increase, within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems”. In other words, while it is not possible to achieve a situation where land degradation is completely halted, a neutral situation combining a reduction in the rate of land degradation and the restoration of degraded land should be the way forward. The implementation of NDT through sustainable land management has multiple objectives. It must contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation (storage of organic carbon in soils), to biodiversity protection and to ensuring food and nutritional security for populations through the strengthening of responsible land governance. Thus the NDT consolidates the synergies between the three Rio conventions and contributes significantly to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
