Both the benefits and impacts can, however, vary by region and context due to the complex nature of defining and measuring land tenure. For instance, Eskander and Barbier (2017) find that, in Bangladesh, secure land tenure is associated with improvements in topsoil conservation. However, it is also related to lower human capital investments (e.g. lower spending on educational and recreational activities). Such heterogeneities in findings suggest that adequate attention needs to be given to the broader macro and sector conditions in addition to the local context within which tenure systems are governed.
8
At a global level, recommendations for stronger land governance in countries that are the targets of large-scale investments are becoming a priority. The rights of indigenous people to their lands and territories are explicitly mentioned in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (Article 25 and Article 26) (United Nations 2007).
The FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) also seek to improve the governance of land tenure with respect to all forms: public, private communal, indigenous, customary and informal (FAO 2012).
Land and sociocultural services Land provides a variety of sociocultural and aesthetic benefits to people that are essential for sustainable, healthy livelihoods. Land degradation, deforestation and desertification lead to increases in land abandonment, outmigration and changes in rural power structures (due to increasing demand for intensification), among others. One of the key impacts of these changes has been a loss of critical sociocultural services provided by land, leading to a lowering of overall community resilience (Wilson et al. 2016; Wilson et al. 2017).
In many developing countries, most people reside in rural areas and are heavily dependent on land resources for their livelihoods. They grow crops for food and to sell in local markets; collect fodder for their livestock; gather wood for their stoves; and collect tree products for their health and well-being (Tomei and Ravindranath 2018). Here, the value of land is often an assertion of their long-standing sociocultural identity, place and heritage (Tomei and Ravindranath 2018). Kelly et al. (2015) show that ancient traditions such as festivals related to the preservation of timber, food and fuel resources reveal a deeply embedded relationship between land, culture and identity. In the European Union (EU), the recreational and cultural significance of land is incorporated, to an extent, through national and regional policies on management of ecosystem services. The EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy, currently being implemented throughout Europe, predominantly covers ‘cultural landscapes’ (European Commission 2011; Plieninger et al. 2013).
Despite progress in recognizing these challenges, land-use trends and impact research continue to be dominated by the study of land-use change from the perspective of productivity, seldom acknowledging and documenting trends in the deep-rooted need for conservation from the perspective of communities (Sharmina et al. 2016).
8.5.4 Gender inequality: land, health and food
Existing gender inequality may contribute to increased poverty, people displacement, resource scarcity and other conflicts (Behrman, Meinzen-Dick and Quisumbing 2012; Verma 2014; White, Park and Mi Yong 2015). While progress has been made on the importance of incorporating women to sustain land productivity, it has often been at a superficial level (e.g. to meet certain global targets). Furthermore, women in agrarian societies often have a strategic role in reducing hunger, malnutrition and poverty as they play a central role in household food security, dietary diversity and children’s health. Evidence suggests that women are much more likely than men are to spend income from these resources on their children’s nutritional and educational needs (Malapit et al. 2015; Komatsu, Malapit and Theis 2018).
Agricultural contributions by women tend to be underestimated or not considered in official statistics since their focus is usually on formal employment in agriculture and on commercial agriculture. Women are usually engaged in subsistence agriculture, they tend home gardens and collect wild foods, and all these contributions are essential to food security (UNEP 2016a). In 2011, women represented 43 per cent of those economically active in agriculture (FAO 2011). However, they hold titles to less than 20 per cent of agricultural land (FAO 2010). In Africa, only Cape Verde can report that women own over half of agricultural holdings (50.5 per cent) (Doss et al. 2017). Few statistics show improvements in land tenure of women during the current decade, especially in countries of the global South (Figure 8.26).
Closing the gender gap in access to information and technology, and access to and control over production inputs and land, could increase agricultural productivity and reduce hunger and poverty (Croppenstedt, Goldstein and Rosas 2013).
8.6 Policy responses
Countless policies and actions attempt to address environmental degradation on land. Some strategies have been successful or are promising (e.g. restoration of degraded lands in specific locations such as the Great Green Wall Project in China – see chapter 15, sustainable management strategies such as no-tillage cultivation in Australia, payment for ecosystem services such as Mexico’s National Program), while the benefits of others are not necessarily clear (e.g. the expansion of agricultural lands for flexible crop and biofuel production). However, most of these approaches do not consider the variety of benefits people obtain from land and focus only on its productive potential. Globally, land is becoming a scarce resource and is increasingly traded instead of being treated as a global common good due to its importance in the provision of basic services such as food production (Creutzig 2017). This section reviews this undesirable trend, while chapter 15 in Part B discusses in detail alternative land-use policies that could change this unsustainable trajectory.
224 State of the Global Environment
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