Introduction
Adopted in 2015 as a part of the SDG Target 15.3, Land Degradation
Neutrality (LDN) is a relatively new but rapidly evolving concept
recommended to the countries to assess, plan and monitor the progress
towards achieving no net loss of healthy land. The concept is supported
by internationally accepted methodology (Cowie et al. 2018; Orr et al.
2017) and is embedded in the UNCCD national reporting. Nevertheless, it
is largely based on a theoretical framework and fragmented experience on
how to operationalize LDN. Practical experience in a number of countries
demonstrates conventional national peculiarities important for
successful LDN targeting. For example, in South Africa the biome level
or landscape process based targets (bush encroachment, alien plant
species removal) are more appropriate than location specific targets.
The spatial location and extent of degradation differ substantially from
the three global indicators suggested for LDN target setting (von
Maltitz et al. 2019). For Nigeria it is indicated (Ifejika Speranza,
Adenle, and Boillat 2019) that “current institutional arrangements are
largely unconducive and incoherent for operationalizing LDN”; land
pollution and gully erosion are suggested as further relevant indicators
for LDN. In Germany (Wunder and Bodle 2019) it is proposed to develop a
“concept for a new LDN indicator, which uses land use categories as a
possible proxy to differentiate likely impacts on soil. Each land use
category is assigned a certain soil value that represents the exposure
to soil threats”. (Verburg et al. 2019) demonstrate the lack of LDN
integration into national land use plans as well as little consideration
for land governance and land tenure issues.
In Russia the impetus for the LDN concept development was two main
projects, and the authors of this work were directly involved in: the
UNCCD LDN target setting programme (2016-2017) and the
Project of Russian Science
Foundation (RSF) ”The development of the novel concept of land
degradation neutrality to assess the effectiveness of the approaches for
sustainable land use and climate change adaptation” (2018-2020). The
concept development was supported by the Scientific Coordination Center
for Combating Desertification of the Institute of Geography of the
Russian Academy of sciences through data collection for three National
reports (National report 2018, 2019, 2021) devoted to land degradation,
desertification and drought respectively, and for the national
communications within the UNCCD PRAIS2 (2014-2015) and PRAIS3
(2017-2018) reporting cycles.
Russia (1/8 of earth’s land) is a country with high natural diversity,
and its experience can be important both at a global and national level.
More than one hundred LDN-related scientific works have been published
so far in Russian national publications, yet their results, as well as
the results of two conferences (Practical Geography, 2018) and (Land
Degradation and Desertification, 2020) are not readily available at the
international level. Therefore, this paper aims to review the results
obtained and consider the directions for their development.