Indirect drivers /linkages between land degradation and restoration and distant social, economic and political processes

Enhancing awareness of the impacts of consumption on land

High consumption lifestyles in developed countries, coupled with rising consumption in developing and emerging economies are the dominant factors driving land degradation. The increasing separation and spatial disconnection between consumers and the ecosystems that produce the food and other commodities they depend upon has resulted in a growing lack of awareness and understanding of the implications of consumption choices for land degradation by these consumers. Local-scale land degradation is often the result of social, political, industrial and economic changes in other parts of the world, with effects that may involve a lag of months or years. These disconnections mean that many of the actors who benefit from the overexploitation of natural resources are among the least affected by the direct negative impacts of land degradation, and therefore have the least incentive to take action. The fact that regional and local land-use decisions are so strongly in influenced by distant drivers can also undermine the effectiveness of local- and regional-scale governance interventions. There is significant potential to build on current efforts to promote more land-friendly consumption choices through information and awareness-raising, as experimented with in some countries through voluntary eco-labelling, certification and corporate social responsibility. When developing strategies for restoration of degraded lands at the local-scale, there is a clear need to identify more distant drivers that may be significant barriers to ecological restoration. Nichole Barger