Managing land


  • Strengthening management of land resources
  • Ensuring sustainable development of land resources
  • Reducing unsustainable development of land resources
  • Offering adequate integrated land management
  • Providing sufficient integrated land management

Description

This involves establishing and strengthening agricultural land-use and land-resource planning, management, education and information at national and local levels.

Context

The essential role of land and water resources in supporting all current and future human activities makes it necessary to consider the management of land resources as one of the primary tools of sustainable human development. The proper method of managing land is through a holistic and integrated approach. An integrated approach to land management is not a fixed procedure, but rather a continuous, iterative process of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The basic techniques for carrying out each of these steps are already available, but their application in many parts of the world is limited by training, financial and institutional constraints.

Failure to manage land resources in an integrated manner could lead to: (a) permanent destruction or degradation of the land's capability to provide economic and environmental benefits; (b) inefficient use or waste of resources: and (c) cumulative effects that lead to trans-boundary problems.

Because land serves multiple functions in society, there are diverse social, economic, and environmental considerations that influence current and future land uses. Examining the potential uses of land in a systematic manner makes it possible to improve social and economic development, while simultaneously protecting and enhancing the environment. A fundamental goal of integrated land management is to use science and technology to prevent degradation of the land's capacity to support human activities, and particularly the production of food.

Modern science and technology play a most important role in integrated land management through the use of: (a) advances in information technology to monitor and diagnose land uses; (b) evaluation technologies for interpretation and the identification of options for land use; (c) application technologies to use the land for specific purposes; and (d) supporting technologies for the provision of the infrastructure that allows for the efficient and sustainable use of land. However, one of the limitations is that the various technologies which can contribute to integrated land management and which have been developed in each of these areas are not available in the developing countries where they are most needed.

There are four major barriers to effective global application of integrated land management methods. These include: (a) limited access to appropriate technology and information; (b) lack of appropriate infrastructure to use science and technology effectively; (c) problems emanating from unsustainable land use practices; and (d) unresolved conflicts between different land use goals. Elimination of these barriers requires approaches specific to each country.

Four approaches are useful for effective implementation of integrated land management: (a) pooling resources among countries with common interests through intra- and intergovernmental cooperation; (b) private/public partnerships in the area of credit provision, and research and development efforts; (c) targeted training and technology support programmes; and (d) direct public investment in resource protection, for example by building dykes and canals to prevent erosion and by planting trees to prevent wind erosion and desertification.

Implementation

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

Narrower

  1. Undertaking flood management
  2. Strengthening traditional sustainable agriculture
  3. Strengthening land management research
  4. Strengthening international coordination of land resource management activities
  5. Protecting endangered monuments and historic sites
  6. Promoting sustainable rangeland management
  7. Managing land use
  8. Managing drylands
  9. Managing agricultural lands
  10. Land use planning
  11. Integrating biosphere and local land use management
  12. Integrating anti-desertification programmes into national sustainable development plans
  13. Instituting integrated management of water catchments
  14. Informing about integrated land resources management
  15. Improving land use practices to prevent land degradation and erosion
  16. Improving education on land management
  17. Disseminating land use information
  18. Developing sound recruitment for water resource agencies
  19. Caring for the land
  20. Building capacity for land management
  21. Addressing problems of cultivation of marginal agricultural land

Facilitated by

  1. Using economic instruments to encourage sustainable use of land resources
  2. Undertaking research on land use
  3. Training in land resource management
  4. Sustaining innovative techniques
  5. Stimulating renewable resources management
  6. Preparing detailed land capability inventories as basis for sustainable land management
  7. Planning for environmental factors
  8. Instigating community resources management
  9. Incorporating sustainable indigenous management systems for land resources
  10. Improving data systems on land resources
  11. Improving analysis of data on land use
  12. Implementing land reform
  13. Facilitating public participation in sustainable land management
  14. Exchanging information on participatory planning of land resources
  15. Establishing innovative approaches to programme funding
  16. Enhancing science and technology training
  17. Developing sustainable land use policy
  18. Developing sustainability indicators for land resources
  19. Delegating sustainable development to appropriate level
  20. Coordinating land development
  21. Adopting strategic frameworks to integrate environment and development goals
  22. Adopting legislation to guide sustainable land development


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