Sustainable land management is a potent way to fight poverty and climate change, while enhancing food security and reducing conflict over resources.

Each year one percent of the world’s arable land is lost due to desertification and drought in the ‘drylands’, the third of the Earth’s land surface that produces 44% of the world’s food. Millions there are being forced to move to more productive land, and this is a major cause of conflict.

Yet, growing evidence shows this land degradation can not only be halted. It can be reversed.

Restoring Earth’s Degraded Land (REDL)

The REDL initiative exists to inspire, equip and connect people – and their organizations – to achieve sustainable land management on a planetary scale, as a path to peace.

Initial activities include co-organizing conference events in Switzerland, with the UNCCD; a pilot project to build trust for sustainable land management in Baringo County, Kenya; outreach at UN events; support for IofC’s teams and initiatives in the drylands; and short films on the human factor in land management.

AIMS: Inspire. Equip. Connect.

• Inspire people – to give land restoration and protection the attention it deserves

• Equip people – with values of global responsibility and tools for intercultural trustbuilding, good governance and living sustainably, pre-conditions for sustainable land management

• Connect people – linking restoration projects and practitioners with governments, industry and citizens