Sustainable land management
Encyclopedia
In a wider context the term sustainable land management is used in soil and environmental protection, in preservation of ecosystem services and mineral extraction. Sustainable is also used in property and estate management as well as regional planning.
Strictly speaking (in a wider /opposite context) the term “sustainable land management” is applied in forestry (this is where it comes from originally), agriculture, land surveying and in combination with land use
Land use
Land use is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. It has also been defined as "the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover...

 management.

Inconsistent application

In the international context the term sustainable is often used in the context of development services. In the course of their work organisations such as the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 (incl. sub-organisations and programmes e.g. UNEP / UNDP, FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

), World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, European Commission and development organisations make use of the term. In the centre of attention is the sustainable use of resources and issues around soil protection.

The World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

 defines Sustainable Land Management as a process in a charged environment between environmental protection and the guarantee claim of ecosystem services on the one hand. On the other hand it is about productivity of agriculture and forestry with respect to demographic growth and increasing pressure in land use.

“SLM is defined as a knowledge-based procedure that helps integrate land, water,
biodiversity, and environmental management (including input and output
externalities) to meet rising food and fiber demands while sustaining ecosystem
services and livelihoods. SLM is necessary to meet the requirements of a growing
population. Improper land management can lead to land degradation and a
significant reduction in the productive and service (biodiversity niches, hydrology,
carbon sequestration) functions of watersheds and landscapes.“

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) applies the term in a much wider context. Besides agriculture and forestry they include the mineral extraction sector, property and estate management.

“Land management is the process by which the resources of land are put to good effect. It covers all activities concerned with the management of land as a resource both from an environmental and from an economic perspective. It can include farming, mineral extraction, property and estate management, and the physical planning of towns and the countryside.”

In the course of national politics and programmes only few European states use the terminology “sustainable land management”. Here Australia and New Zealand are to be mentioned as both countries have agreed on sustainable land management with respect to climate change as part of their government programmes.

In the European context the definition of the European Network for Land Use Management for Sustainable European Cities (LUMASEC) may be used as a reference. It emphasizes the inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation on sustainable land management:

“As management is the human activity meaning the action of people working together in the aim to accomplish desired goals, land use management is a process of managing use and development of land, in which spatial, sector-oriented and temporary aspects of urban policy are coordinated. Resources of land are used for different purposes, which may produce conflicts and competitions, and land use management has to see those purposes in an integrated way. Therefore, land management covers the debate about norms and visions driving the policy-making, sector-based planning both in the strategic and more operative time spans, spatial integration of sectoral issues, decision-making, budgeting, implementation of plans and decisions and the monitoring of results and evaluation of impacts.”

Research on Sustainable Land Management

Since 2010 various regional projects from science and praxis work on several topics regarding the sustainable use of land and its management. The research projects are embedded in the international research programme “sustainable land management” which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Land is a very valuable but limited resource, which in the future needs to be used in an intelligent way. Thus on the one hand the aim of the programme is to understand the interaction between land management, climate change and ecosystem services. On the other hand innovative system solutions will be developed to encounter the current challenges of global change and the accompanying land use conflicts.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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