In Yerevan, Armenia, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has launched its first major update in more than 30 years to a set of guidelines for planning how land is used. The voluntary framework is designed to help countries weigh rising demands on land, soil and water without treating farming, growing cities, infrastructure and nature protection as separate choices.
The updated Guidelines for Integrated Land Use Planning were launched during the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP17. These resources are finite, and choices about them affect food and water supplies, ecosystems and people’s livelihoods. The guidelines offer a way to bring evidence and different voices into decisions about how land is used, restored and protected.
The framework is practical and country-led. It is meant to support existing policies, planning processes and institutions, not replace them or dictate a single national system. Countries can adapt its tools, measures and methods to their own priorities, laws and circumstances. The approach asks planners to balance agriculture, urban growth and infrastructure with conservation, restoration, climate resilience and sustainable economic and social development. It also supports food and water security and the goal of land degradation neutrality, which means stopping the loss of healthy, productive land and working to restore it.
The update reflects changes in planning tools since the previous major edition in 1993. It incorporates advances in geospatial technology, digital information systems, land evaluation and methods for comparing different priorities. It also draws on decision-support systems, which help people assess options and their likely effects.
FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said “soil intelligence” is central to the new approach. She described it as bringing together soil data, maps, monitoring and local knowledge to guide decisions on land use, production, restoration and investment. The guidelines also place stakeholder engagement and open, inclusive decision-making at the heart of planning, so that people affected by choices can have a role in shaping them.
FAO developed the guidelines through a global consultation involving its member countries, technical experts and partner organizations across all regions. Their acknowledgement by FAO’s Committee on Agriculture at its Thirtieth Session, or COAG30, marked a step toward more joined-up management of land, soil and water.
A forthcoming Practitioners’ Guide will turn the framework’s nine steps into practical guidance for putting it to use. The guidelines are also intended to support more efficient, inclusive and resilient food systems, strengthen cooperation among the three Rio Conventions on environment and development, and advance the Sustainable Development Goals. Their success will depend on how countries adapt the framework to local needs, and on whether new evidence and community knowledge make their way into real planning decisions.