Highlights and images for 27 August 2026

Healthy soils are crucial for supporting sustainable and resilient agriculture and food systems, which in turn play a critical role in tackling desertification, land degradation, and food insecurity around the world. 

Furthering this work cuts across the land, climate, and biodiversity nexus. It also requires ensuring that farmers, including smallholders and pastoralists, have the capacity and support to implement sustainable and regenerative land management practices. Among the things needed for this are secure and equitable land tenure, access to finance, and supportive policy frameworks that reward farmers’ role as custodians of living soils – all issues that link to discussions under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Want to dig deeper into today's talks? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report. 

"Food Systems and Soil Health" was the theme of the penultimate day of the 17th Session of the Conference of the Parties to UNCCD (COP 17). While several events on the topic were underway around the venue, delegates gathered for the final stretch of negotiations. Fittingly, agricultural land was on the afternoon agenda in the contact group of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST).

The tentatively hopeful afternoon scheduling of the Plenaries for the CST and Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC) appeared premature as negotiations proved slow on several agenda items. In the end, neither took place, and Parties buckled in for late night–and possibly even early morning–negotiations. 

Just before lunch, the Committee of the Whole (COW) contact group on other matters received news of a “delicate” agreement on drought, with Parties ultimately deciding to continue discussions at COP 18, based on progress from COPs 16 and 17. The contact group did make progress on some draft decisions, including on rangelands and pastoralists, land tenure, and sand and dust storms, notwithstanding persisting disagreements on cross-cutting issues.

The CRIC and CST contact groups spent the afternoon and much of the evening exchanging views on capacity-building and agricultural lands, respectively.