Recent international discussions have highlighted how challenging it can be to ensure that scientific perspectives are fully integrated and effectively heard in multilateral processes.

Scientific knowledge, alongside contributions from civil society, is enabling increasingly accurate documentation of the extent of desertification and land degradation, as well as their mechanisms, dynamics, and consequences. We understand the close links between climate, biodiversity, food security, and social stability. And yet, despite this accumulation of knowledge, the global trajectory of desertification and land degradation remains deeply concerning.

As we approach COP17 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, one question stands out: What are we doing with this knowledge?

The challenge is not only to produce knowledge. It is to ensure that it genuinely informs collective choices, without losing what makes it strong: its independence, rigor, and universality—rethinking resilience: from a reactive approach to a proactive mindset.

Resilience has become a key principle underpinning public policy, particularly within the UNCCD. Yet its application often remains vague. It involves absorbing shocks, adapting, and maintaining the functioning of existing systems as far as possible. In this sense, resilience remains essentially reactive (engineering resilience). Whilst such an approach is necessary, it is now insufficient. Faced with the accelerating dynamics of desertification and land degradation, there is an urgent need to shift from crisis management to risk management. Resilience can no longer be viewed solely as a response to crises. It must become proactive, underpinned by a capacity for anticipation and transformation (ecological resilience).

This implies a fundamental shift:

• Moving from a logic of repair to a logic of prevention
• Moving from managing impacts to reducing structural vulnerabilities
• Moving from a return to equilibrium to a redefinition of trajectories

In other words, it is no longer simply a matter of making systems capable of withstanding disturbances, but of making them capable of avoiding systemic exposure to them.

In the case of soils, this means:

• Anticipating degradation processes rather than correcting them
• Transforming agricultural systems before they become unsustainable
• Integrating climate and ecological risks into planning and investment decisions

This proactive approach to resilience is based on a detailed understanding of the dynamics at play, critical thresholds and tipping points. It gives research a central role: not only to document the past and the present, but also to shed light on possible futures.

Generating knowledge about the mechanisms of desertification and soil degradation is no longer enough. The task now is to help identify:

• The trajectories to avoid
• Windows of opportunity
• The conditions for sustainable transformation

Understood in this way, resilience ceases to be a mere public policy objective. It becomes a guiding principle for decision-making, based on anticipation, prevention and transformation.

Resilient lands for stable societies

Soils are an invisible yet essential support system for our societies. Their degradation simultaneously undermines agricultural systems, climatic balance and regional dynamics.

Conversely, their restoration strengthens:

• Food security
• The ability to adapt to climate change
• Economic and social stability

Thus, land resilience is inextricably linked to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. This link is now firmly established by research. Yet it remains insufficiently integrated into international decision-making frameworks, where political timelines and divergent interests tend to fragment responses.

From knowledge to action: an expanded role for research

In this context, the responsibility of the scientific community is evolving. Generating knowledge is no longer enough. It is becoming necessary to consider its capacity to:

• Circulate
• Be understood
• Shape assessments
• Inform decision-making

This requires strengthening interactions with public bodies, local authorities and international arenas. But it also implies a more profound shift: taking on a greater presence in the arena of environmental diplomacy.

Considering that Conferences of the Parties are useless would be a misunderstanding of their role. Turning away from them risks allowing these forums to take shape without the scientific input needed to meet the challenges at hand.

Science and diplomacy: a necessary presence, an indispensable independence

In a context marked by increasing politicization of environmental debates and tensions that weaken multilateral efforts, reaching shared assessments is becoming more difficult. International negotiation forums remain vital, but they are filled with conflicting interests, tight political schedules, and sometimes competing narratives. In this environment, science plays an even more critical role: not to make decisions, but to help sustain a common understanding, without which no sustainable collective choice can be made. In these forums, science is present and has the potential to play a more cohesive and structuring role

Strengthening its role is essential. But this development raises a fundamental requirement. Science must not become a tool serving political, economic, or strategic interests. Its contribution rests precisely on its ability to produce independent, robust, and shareable knowledge. It is not intended to replace decision-making. Its purpose is to illuminate the range of possibilities, adopting a stance of open and non-prescriptive expertise (Honest Broker)

It is precisely because it is free from the logic of vested interests that it can:

• Highlight interdependencies
• Objectify risks
• Shed light on long-term consequences

In a context where political pressures can shape narratives and oversimplify diagnoses, this independence is essential to its effectiveness. It acts as a bulwark against the blurring of established facts and opinions.

Anchoring scientific mobilization at the country level

Whilst international frameworks play a vital role in providing impetus and coordination, the effective transformation of trajectories takes place primarily at the country level.

It is at this level that the following are defined:

• Land-use policies
• Trade-offs between development, agriculture and conservation
• Public and private investment
• Implementation mechanisms

However, in many contexts, the link between scientific research and public decision-making remains insufficiently structured.

The knowledge exists, but it still struggles to:

• Be incorporated into national policies
• Inform budgetary decisions
• Support regional strategies

Strengthening the role of science in international diplomacy is therefore not enough. It is essential to build robust links between research and public policy in every country.

This requires:

• Scientific communities capable of engaging with national decision-makers
• Sustainable mechanisms for translating knowledge into public policy
• Institutional acknowledgment of scientific expertise

But this also requires a commitment from the researchers themselves:

• getting involved in national policy-making
• contributing to public policy
• taking part in forums for dialogue between science, politics and society

Land resilience is built locally, decided nationally, and coordinated internationally. None of these levels can be overlooked.

Engaging without aligning: a scientific responsibility

For researchers, this shift demands a challenging approach. Becoming more engaged in forums for dialogue, decision-making, and diplomacy does not mean sacrificing rigor or critical distance. On the contrary, it involves applying this rigor to collective debate, without succumbing to the pressure of alignment.

This entails:

• Preserving the integrity of results, even when they are uncomfortable;
• Rejecting any form of exploitation;
• Making knowledge accessible and understandable;
• Helping to establish common analytical frameworks

Academic constraints, career considerations, and the risks associated with engagement are very real. But given the scale of desertification and soil degradation, inaction or the withdrawal of scientific diplomacy does not constitute a neutral position.

Failing to engage means accepting that decisions are made without fully mobilizing available knowledge.

Conclusion — Scientific engagement grounded in its principles

In a context where collective frameworks are being tested, science remains one of the few common languages. As COP17 approaches, mobilizing the scientific community is essential. But this mobilization cannot be reduced to either increased knowledge production or a symbolic presence in international forums. It must aim to strengthen science’s capacity to inform collective trajectories at all levels: in the international arenas where common frameworks are negotiated, but also at the national level, where concrete decisions and the actual conditions of implementation are determined.

Land resilience will not be achieved without systemic transformation. This transformation cannot be guided without a fully engaged science. But this commitment comes with a condition: that it remains in the service of knowledge and the common good, and not of the interests seeking to appropriate it.

Ensuring the conditions for science to engage is not only an institutional challenge — it is also an individual responsibility. On the eve of COP17, it is up to every researcher to engage, contribute and provide insight — without aligning, without compromising, without steering. At this price, science will be able to fully play its role as an indispensable reference in building a shared future.

This text aims simply to open up a space for discussion. Its impact will depend on how it is collectively received.

It is written with the UNCCD COP17 in mind, whilst calling for us to anticipate, from now on, the challenges of the post-2030 agenda, the first tensions of which are already apparent.

This text forms part of the presentation entitled “From Drought Crisis to Risk Governance: International Policy Frameworks: Strengths, Gaps & Opportunities” delivered at the Désertif’Actions 2026 Summit (Djerba) (https://desertif-actions.org/)

It received editorial support via an artificial intelligence tool, under the author’s responsibility.

Jean-Luc Chotte – President CSFD
31 mars 2026