Our relationship with the land has shaped our history and will define our future. The land provides us with everything we need to thrive, from food to shelter to energy. It sustains us and underpins our ability to create wealth.

With the global population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, solutions are badly needed to ensure that our land can continue to support our ability to develop and maintain a healthy global society and economy.

Solutions from the Land’s landmark 2013 Pathways Report evaluates the trends that will shape our future; highlights what is happening on and to our land; and encourages discussion on how land and resource managers, as well as the communities they serve, can collaborate to protect the land’s productive capacity and the ecosystems services it provides.

The result of a three-year conversation among thought leaders across agriculture, forestry, business, conservation, think tanks and academia, the report explores such questions as:

• How can we compensate land managers for incentivizing the delivery of multiple goods and services from the land?
• Are current land use polices creating conflicts or promoting constructive solutions?
• What innovative policies and practices are happening locally that can be replicated elsewhere and/or scaled up?

Initial findings from the dialogue are detailed in the report, and offer a vision for maximizing ecosystem services sustainably is presented.

The report has been shaped by the dialogue participants’ shared view that opportunities exist to improve land use to better achieve domestic and global production, environmental and social goals.

The report can be accessed here.

An executive summary of the report can be accessed here.

Read the press release and media coverage of SfL’s Pathways Report.