Subject Guides: Sustainable Development Goals at NSCC: Goal 15: Life On Land

About Goal 15

Goal 15, Life on Land, aims to protect and restore terrestrial ecosystems. This goal promoted the use of sustainable management and restoration of forests, wetlands, mountains and other terrestrial ecosystems. It also seeks to protect vulnerable and endangered species while preventing the invasion of alien species. 

Learn more about Goal 15

UN Environment Programme. (2020, April 23). How nature can protect us from pandemics [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9NUaC_Fp9qU

NSCC and Goal 15

Examples of NSCC initiatives that are helping to advance Goal 15: Life on Land.

Environmental Rehabilitation

NSCC’s Natural Resources Environmental Technology program is an active influence in the province. In 2018, the program led to the planting of 1,000 Red Spruce saplings at a former limestone quarry. The trees will not only support the recovery of the ecosystem but also support the capture of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Read the CBC News article: 1,000 red spruce saplings planted in an abandoned quarry in rural Cape Breton.

Resources and Links

Plant Watch Nova Scotia
Learn more about the plants of Nova Scotia
Spreading like wildfire: the rising threat of extraordinary landscape fires
Describes how climate change and land-use change are making wildfires worse and anticipates a global increase of extreme fires even in areas previously unaffected.
UNCCD: Land management & restoration
UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD): Land restoration is the ecological process to restore a natural and safe landscape for humans, wildlife, and plant communities.
UNEP: Five threats to the water that sustains our farms
A closer look at what is behind the decline of the world’s per capita freshwater reserves and how those challenges are affecting farmers.

Books

eBook: Primer of ecological restoration by Karen Holl (2020)
An introduction to the theory and practice of ecological restoration as a strategy to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems.
eBook: Transitioning to sustainable life on land by Volker Beckmann (2021)
Presents reviews, original research, and practical experiences from different disciplines with a focus on: protection, restoration and sustainable use of diverse terrestrial ecosystems.
Nature's Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy (2019)
Shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats.

Key Organizations

FAO: Forestry
Through its Forestry Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) seeks to have transformational impacts that benefit forests and forest-dependent people and help achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organizations, making it the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.
UNREDD
United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD): the UN knowledge and advisory platform on forest solutions to the climate crisis.