Global Governance for sustainable land use - Status and Opportunities

The GLOBALANDS (Global Land Use and Sustainability) project was initiated by the German Federal Environmental Agency and is funded by the Federal Ministry for Environment. It identifies “best prac-tices” in terms of national and international-level policies and practices of global sustainable land use. Key research results concern:

• A comprehensive screening was carried out of national and international-level policies with relevant (side-) effects on sustainable land use, and the identification of windows of opportunity to strengthen sustainable land use.
• A new concept for socially inclusive and regionally differentiated systemic indicators for sustainable land use in key areas was developed. There is a specific gap of adequate indicators applicable for small-scale land users that creates a hurdle for inclusive policies and which may restrict political agreements on sustainable land use goals. The systemic approach integrates environmental and social aspects through formulating sustainable land use practices for different actors and regions, taking into account traditional knowledge, and respective evidence.
• As a way ahead, activities are required to strengthen sustainable land use aspects in existing global governance systems such as UN conventions and other international policies, as well as a better safe-guarding of sustainable land use for project-level financing through bi- and multilateral development agencies. The latter should be socially inclusive processes and take into account actor-oriented indica-tors.