Analysis of the impact of land use on ecosystem services in productive landscapes of 12 African countries

Land is at the centre of Africa’s prosperity and the sustainability of livelihoods across the continent. The question of land use and land health relate not only to agriculture, which employs about half of the continent’s workforce, but also to housing, urbanization, biodiversity, water and a number of other issues. Unsustainable land use practices and other pressures have been degrading land across Africa, with climate change an additional pressing threat to land health and the livelihoods that depend on it. The health of natural ecosystems is intimately linked with land use – poor land use has the potential to undermine ecosystems at the site of such activities, but can also have wider impacts through, for example, erosion or pollution. Land is thus an enormously valuable resource. At the same time, land is limited – there is only a given amount of land available and allocating it to a specific use, for example urban development, means that it’s availability for other activities, such as agriculture or nature conservation, is constrained or eliminated. While opportunities for mixed land use do exist, there are inevitable impacts of certain forms of land use that may limit the opportunities for other uses and there are trade-offs with managing land for mixed use. This means that, as human pressures on Africa’s available land increases, judicious decision making is required to manage competing demands, maintain the productive capacity of land, and balance trade-offs between various forms of land use.

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