Experiences from the South African land degradation neutrality target setting process
Loading...
Date
Authors
Von Maltitz, Graham Paul
Kellner, Klaus
Gambiza, James
Rambau, Thizwilondi
Lindeque, Lehman
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
South Africa undertook a national Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) target setting process during 2017/18 in response to the United Nations Convention to Combatting Desertification’s call for signatory countries to voluntarily commit to LDN as also requested under Sustainability Development Goal 15.3. The process was supported by the Global Mechanism (GM) and followed their guidelines. This resulted in an ambitious set of targets being set for 2030. Early in the process it was recognised that biome level or landscape process based (bush encroachment, alien plant species removal) targets were more appropriate than location specific targets. South Africa has used the World Overview of Conservation Technologies and Approaches (WOCAT) Mapping Questionnaire (QM), to conducted two, ten years apart, assessments based on experts’ perception of municipal level land degradation. The spatial location and extent of degradation, as identified from these studies, differed substantially from the three global indicators suggested as a baseline for LDN target setting. An analysis of the reasons for the discrepancies between the UNCCD indicators from the perception-based studies, and the implications this has for setting and monitoring South African land degradation is the main focus of this paper
Description
Citation
Von Maltitz, G.P. et al. 2019. Experiences from the South African land degradation neutrality target setting process. Environmental science and policy, 101:54-62. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.07.003]