Land finally gets high profile at global United Nations environment conferences

I listen to a lot of climate-focused webinars and read a lot of climate-related information. Land and tenure security is hardly ever mentioned by the big UN climate agencies, and land administration is never mentioned. Yet as this audience knows, these issues are in the critical path of the delivery of the climate goals for the planet. I hope that finally land will start to get a higher profile after the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA 6) held in March 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya, where it was discussed for the first time.

LAND KEY CLIMATE ISSUE: Land’s contribution to addressing global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable development was the focus of UNEA 6. “Land is the only common denominator among the three Rio (climate) conventions, and it is only through land restoration that we can achieve their objectives. We need to ..start with working on credible solutions when it comes to land..”, the President and Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development for the Kingdom of Morocco, Leila Benali stated during UNEA 6. https://www.africa.com/land-issues-high-on-un-environment-assembly-agenda/

UN RESOLUTION: “For the first time, UNEA adopted a resolution calling for strengthening international efforts to combat desertification and land degradation, restore degraded lands, promote land conservation and sustainable land management, contribute to land degradation neutrality and enhance drought resilience.”

UPCOMING CONFERENCE: This year these issues will be the focus at the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 2-13 December, 2024. “UNCCD is one of the three major (but smallest) treaties known as the Rio Conventions— alongside climate change and biodiversity. Healthy land is at the heart of reaching global climate, nature and sustainable development goals (and in) delivering secure land rights for all in all parts of the world” https://www.unccd.int/cop16. The surveying industry needs to continue to advocate for the security of tenure, land administration and land governance issues in global climate forums whenever we get the chance. Anybody got any ideas on how we could do this?

Written by Clarissa Augustinus: Co-Chair of FIG Climate Compass Task Force 06/04/2024