Unlocking land restoration opportunities: Aviation’s role in combating desertification and drought

When it comes to recognizing Desertification and Drought Day, which is being observed globally on 17 June under the 2025 theme ‘Restore the Land. Unlock the Opportunities’, it is important to recognize the many ways the international aviation sector advances land restoration and unlocks socio-economic benefits.

As Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), said: “Land degradation and drought are major disruptors of our economy, stability, food production, water and quality of life. They amplify climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, forced migration and conflicts over access to fertile land and water. Land restoration is an opportunity to turn the tide on these alarming trends. A restored land is a land of endless opportunities. It’s time to unlock them now.”  

Harnessing cross-sectoral synergies is key to advancing shared goals in environmental protection, creating socio-economic opportunities, and making the most of limited resources—all while supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given its leadership in international aviation environmental protection, ICAO has consistently aligned its strategies with broader UN initiatives, including those focused on sustainable land and water use. This alignment is evident in the design of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), developed through close collaboration between technical experts and ICAO Member States to ensure strong environmental safeguards.

Sustainable land use and water use through CORSIA

 CORSIA Eligible Units

 The 39th ICAO Assembly in 2016 adopted CORSIA as the only global market-based measure applying to CO2 emissions from international aviation, to complement mitigation measures the air transport community is already pursuing to reduce CO2 emissions from international aviation, and in support of the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Under CORSIA, aeroplane operators need to purchase CORSIA Eligible Emissions Units (CEUs) from the carbon market to offset CO₂ emissions that cannot be reduced through technological or operational improvements. They can also offset their emissions using CORSIA Eligible Fuels (CEFs), which include CORSIA sustainable aviation fuels and CORSIA lower carbon aviation fuels.

CEUs and CEFs are governed by strict eligibility criteria, which were developed by subject matter experts and approved by the ICAO Council. These are outlined in the ICAO documents CORSIA Emissions Unit Eligibility Criteria (EUC) and CORSIA Sustainability Criteria for CORSIA Eligible Fuels respectively.

There is strong linkage between sustainable land and water use and CORSIA as CEUs can originate from carbon offset projects such as forestry and renewable energy initiatives, which directly impact land and water resources. While these projects offer economic opportunities, they also raise concerns around land grabbing and greenwashing.

To ensure sustainability, the CORSIA EUC were carefully designed to bring additionality and permanence, avoid double counting, and to prevent adverse impacts on local communities. This approach enables forestry projects to support land restoration and socio-economic development, while also ensuring long-term environmental benefits and protecting the interests of the local community. The CORSIA EUC establishes the following:

• Carbon offset credits must represent emissions reductions, avoidance, or carbon sequestration that are permanent. If there is risk of reductions or removals being reversed, then either such credits are not eligible, or mitigation measures are in place to monitor, mitigate, and compensate any material incidence of non-permanence.
• Carbon offset programmes must generate units that represent emissions reductions, avoidance, or removals that are additional.
• Emissions units are only counted once towards a mitigation obligation. Measures must be in place to avoid double issuance, double use and double claiming.
• Offset credits should be generated from projects that do not cause emissions to materially increase elsewhere, i.e. material leakage. Offset credit programmes should also have an established process for assessing and mitigating leakage of emissions that may result from the implementation of an offset project or programme.
• Carbon offset credits must represent emissions reductions, avoidance, or carbon sequestration from projects that do no net harm. Offset projects should not violate local, State/provincial, national or international regulations or obligations.
• Offset programmes should have in place safeguard system to address environmental and social risks. These safeguards should be publicly disclosed.
• Programmes should publicly disclose who is responsible for administration of the programme and how decisions are made, i.e. programme governance.
• Programmes should publicly disclose the sustainable development criteria used, for example, how this contributes to achieving a country’s sustainable development priorities, and any provisions for monitoring, reporting and verification.

Outside of ICAO, the 29th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which took place in November 2024, also finalized rules that will ensure environmental integrity and transparency of the international carbon markets. ICAO is working closely with the UNFCCC and ICAO Member States to ensure that Governments hosting activities that generate CORSIA eligible emissions units as approved by the ICAO Council, could authorize these units to be used under CORSIA.

CORSIA eligible fuels

Recognizing concerns related to the use of sustainable fuels, particularly their potential impacts on food security, biodiversity and destruction of primary forest, ICAO has also undertaken extensive work to address these concerns as the aviation sector advances its transition to cleaner energies. The CORSIA Sustainability Criteria for CORSIA Eligible Fuels contain a set of 14 principles and criteria to ensure that the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) under CORSIA promotes sustainable land and water use and respects the rights of local communities.

The production of CORSIA SAF should:

• maintain or enhance water quality and availability.
• maintain or enhance soil health.
• promote the responsible management of waste and the use of chemicals.
• maintain biodiversity, conservation value, and ecosystem services.
• respect land rights and land use rights, including indigenous and/or customary rights.
• contribute to social and economic development in regions of poverty.
• respect prior formal or customary water use rights.
• promote food security in food-insecure regions.

In addition, CORSIA SAF should not be made from biomass obtained from land or aquatic systems with high biogenic carbon stock.

Under the ICAO Assistance, Capacity-building and Training for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (ACT-SAF) programme, ICAO has been supporting States with SAF development and deployment including through SAF Feasibility and Business Implementation studies. Seven feasibility studies have been completed to date, and 23 more are ongoing or launching soon.

An important feature of the SAF studies is the comprehensive stakeholder consultation process which engages government agencies responsible for aviation, the environment, energy, stakeholders in the aviation fuel supply chain, and other local stakeholders to ensure all economic, environmental and social aspects of SAF development are considered.

For example, the study conducted for Côte d’Ivoire evaluated potential feedstocks for SAF considering environmental factors such as deforestation, biodiversity protection, soil and coastal erosion, water resource conservation, and food security. Côte d’Ivoire has one of the highest deforestation rates globally, having lost about 80% of its forests over the last 60 years, largely due to agricultural expansion. Consequently, forest preservation is a critical priority in assessing SAF feedstock options for the country. The study concluded that palm oil is not a preferred feedstock due to land-use concerns and its existing value-added market. In contrast, agricultural residues were identified as a promising biomass source for SAF production, provided they can be efficiently collected and processed.

A similar approach was adopted in other studies including one conducted for Burkina Faso, which recognized that biomass availability is closely tie to traditional practices and customs, as forests play a vital role in the social, cultural and economic life of people. The study also took into account local climate conditions when making recommendations for SAF feedstock cultivation, aiming to avoid placing additional water stress.

Combating desertification and drought through forest fire fighting efforts

Other than contributing to sustainable land and water use through the design of CORSIA, ICAO also contributes to preventing desertification and drought by supporting efforts to combat forest fires.

As highlighted in the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) 2022 report on wildfires, wildfires are growing in intensity and spreading in range with serious environmental consequences, including impacts on biodiversity, global carbon cycle and water catchments.

Emergency responses to forest fire fighting involves both ground and air intervention. Although ground forces remain the principal lever of action and the coordinator of the overall response, aircraft play an important complementary role to control the escalation of fires. The aerial response to fires has improved over time and contributing to this has been the continuous improvements of monitoring tools and early warning systems.

The ICAO Flying Forest Fire Fighting (I4F) Dialogue, launched in 2020, facilitates the exchange of information on existing activities, technologies and arrangements, while promoting cooperation among States and stakeholders through knowledge exchange. The 2021 I4F Dialogue identified the need to establish an informal multi-stakeholder working group involving ICAO, the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC), the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) and the UNEP/United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNEP/OCHA) Joint Environment Unit (JEU). It also emphasized the importance of identifying focal points across ICAO Member States to raise awareness and gain support for forest fire fighting efforts.

Key areas identified for further action included enhancing outreach, developing certification frameworks, increasing awareness, and fostering innovation in firefighting, forecasting, mitigation, and prevention. Building on the previous I4F dialogue, further discussions are being planned to advance this initiative. The recently concluded ICAO Aviation Climate Week also further discussed such collaboration in climate adaptation and resilience.

Summary

To echo the UNCCD, healthy land is central to the wellbeing of the planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity; it feeds us, shelters us, and provides the backbone to a thriving global economy. This understanding forms a core pillar of ICAO’s approach to environmental protection, which consistently integrates land-use considerations—reflected in ICAO’s work such as CORSIA and the I4F dialogue— in order to unlock aviation-related opportunities while promoting sustainable land use and mitigating CO2 emissions. ICAO remains committed to strengthening its collaboration with UN bodies and international organizations in addressing desertification and drought, contributing its aviation-specific expertise to these shared global efforts.

Press office ICAO