Aims
The Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace (ILLP) programme is a programme of IofC International to promote peace through land restoration and community trust-building. We seek to be the bridge between international organizations and local communities, connecting individuals to create opportunities for positive change for people, places and the planet.
ILLP aims to:
- Deepen understanding of links between climate change, land degradation and human security.
- Build the trust needed for effective collaboration on initiatives to restore land and build peace.
ILLP works by:
- promoting and demonstrating changes in human relationships and attitudes as a key condition for both peace and land restoration;
- bringing together stakeholders in an atmosphere of mutual trust to facilitate partnerships for land restoration;
- spreading the experience and methodology of trust-building by drawing upon the long experience of IofC in trust-building, reconciliation and overcoming human barriers to progress;
- promoting policies and practices to advance ecosystem restoration in collaboration with trust-building for peace.
Land restoration can be a path to building sustainable peace and tackling climate change. At the same time, peace is a prerequisite for restoring land. Changes in human attitudes, behaviour and relationships are a key to achieving both.
Why this is important
Peace, development and environmental sustainability are usually promoted separately. However, they are deeply intertwined and often can only be achieved together. This is especially the case where dry or degraded lands put populations under pressure. More than 75% of the world’s conflicts occur in dryland areas, which are home to just 35% of the world’s population.
1% of agricultural land is lost each year, and not necessarily from natural causes. By applying simple techniques, this lost land can be restored to sustainable productive use, enhancing food security. On top of this, improved management of the world’s land represents one third of the overall global climate change abatement potential by 2030.
Where land degradation occurs without restoration, the primary reasons are often not technical or financial but are connected to lack of trust or actual conflict. Change in human attitudes, behaviour and relationships are key to achieving both peace and land restoration.
