This post was written by Feras Ziadat (fe[email protected]) and Theodora Fetsi ([email protected]).

The growing challenges of population growth, demands on limited resources by diverse actors, land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change require the rational use of resources to sustain and enhance productivity and maintain resilient ecosystems. The availability of suitable planning tools and information to support the decision-makers at different scales and across sectors is limited. Sustainable development projects and initiatives implemented by resource partners and governments require an updated land resource planning (LRP) tools that integrate all sectors, make better use of technology, introduce sustainable land management practices and follow a people-centered multiscale approach.

Given this, last year FAO conducted a survey on participatory LRP to compile experiences among users of LRP tools and approaches. Around 750 land management practitioners provided useful perspectives on the gaps and bottlenecks in LRP tools and opportunities for future development, which are featured in the recent publication on Land Resources Planning for Sustainable Land Management.

Among the identified needs are to ensure balanced involvement of all stakeholders, sectors and actors at the national and sub-national level, enhance the visibility of user-identified tools, approaches and databases, and foster capacity development in the use of specialized tools and databases. The survey identified a serious knowledge gap about the tools and approaches available for guiding LRP processes.

To address this gap, the Land Resources Planning (LRP) Toolbox was established and launched at the UNCCD COP13 in China (read the full article here). The LRP Toolbox is a categorized inventory of existing tools and approaches and describes their capabilities, limitations and suitability for various LRP stakeholders, professionals, regions and scales. The LRP tools can help decision-makers and land users put sustainable land management into practice to augment land restoration and the transformation from unsustainable to sustainable development in support of the SDGs.

So far, the Toolbox contains around 100 tools, and this is an ongoing process as we wish to extent the content and be more inclusive. Therefore, we welcome your contribution and valuable support in this process. If you would like to add tools you have developed or are aware of and are not included in the LRP Toolbox, please fill out the template and send it back to [email protected].

Please spread the word and share the LRP Toolbox with your networks.

Resources:

FAO. 2017. Land resource planning for sustainable land management http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5937e.pdf  

FAO Land Resources Planning Toolbox http://www.fao.org/land-water/land/land-governance/land-resources-planning-toolbox/en/