dc.description |
This report focuses on land management issues for the sustainable
intensification of food and fiber systems and for the rehabilitation of
degraded crop, pasture, and forestlands. While good land management
is important at the field and farm level, it is not enough to ensure sustainability. The planning and execution of sound resource management at the watershed (catchment*) level and even beyond (often referred to as the “landscape
level”) is increasingly important for retaining ecological integrity and ensuring
that food and fiber systems are resilient enough to absorb shocks and stresses
and avoid degradation of land and water resources (FRP 2005). New scientific
knowledge detailing the extent and importance of ecosystem services and their
roles in sustaining humans and our agroecosystems is now becoming available.
The social and economic values of these services provide new opportunities for
policies to encourage SLM. Recent advances in remote sensing tools will greatly
facilitate the timely monitoring of land management effects and resource
degradation by both users and policy makers. However, new investments will
be necessary to meet the demand from land users to (a) improve access to
existing knowledge and information of SLM and the consequences of inappropriate management, (b) appropriately intensify land use, and (c) rehabilitate land that has been degraded for both productive and ecosystem functions. |
|