Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources

Sustainable Land Management

Human activities can degrade the land and negatively impact water and biological resources, affecting the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities. Evidence of degradation can be seen when desertification and deforestation ruins the land's resource potential.

Activities that contribute to land degradation include soil erosion, denudation, pollution, loss of organic matter, loss of fertility and vegetation cover, introduction of invasive species, habitat conversion, and aquifer degradation.

As based on objectives defined by the UNDP, under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, this project focuses on land degradation and support community-led sustainable land management projects including:

1. Strengthening capacities at the community and local levels to support sustainable land management.

2. Facilitating the formulation and implementation of land use planning systems, with an emphasis on drought preparedness and other extreme climatic events.

3. Supporting the development of agreements and modalities for the management of transboundary natural resources through sustainable land management.

4. Promoting sustainable agricultural practices, such as crop diversification, to reduce the risk of crop failure, and support the judicious use of fertilizers and other agrochemicals.

5. Supporting soil and water conservation through improved tillage methods.

6. Taking agro-forestry approaches to reduce erosion.

7. promoting suitable land uses (including protection from farming where necessary).

8. improving the management of agricultural waste.

9. Supporting sustainable rangeland and pasture management, and ground water conservation by strengthening viable traditional systems, and introducing mechanisms to resolve conflicts over land use.

10. Offering community-based protection and rehabilitation.

11. Fire management.

12. The replenishment of ground water.

13. Supporting forest and woodland management, especially in non-protected forests, by strengthening viable indigenous management systems

14. Rehabilitating degraded deforested areas.

15. Introducing fees for ecological services.

16. Managing community woodlots for fuelwood.