Funding for this project was made possible through grants from the Biodiversity Support Program, a former USAID-funded consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and World Resources Institute, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

The authors would like to thank the many individuals who contributed to this report at various stages, with helpful comments and review, and with contributions to early versions of a technical report on dryland indicators, from which the idea and some of the material for this report were derived: Paul Bartel (U.S. Agency for International Development), Phil Dobie (U.N. Development Program), Hari Eswaren (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Robert Ford (U.S. Agency for International Development), Peter Gilruth (Raytheon Systems Company), Patrick Gonzalez (U.S. Geological Survey), Hassan Hassan (World Bank), Walter Lusigi (GEF Secretariat), Ndegwa Ndiangâ??ui (UNCCD Secretariat), Danielius Pivoriunas (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Stephen Prince (University of Maryland, Geography Department), Paul Reich (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Anna Tengberg (U.N. Environment Programme/ Global Environment Facility), and Camilla Toulmin (International Institute for Environment and Development). Special thanks goes to Karen Holmes for her editorial guidance and to Maggie Powell for her production expertise.

Within WRI, thanks are due to Chris Elias, Silvi Llosa, Tony Janetos, Jesse Ribot, and Rob Wolcott for their constructive criticism, Johnathan Kool for map production, Gracie Bermudez for administrative support, and Jillian Salvatore for preliminary report layout and formatting.

About the authors

Robin P. White is a Senior Associate in the Information Program at the World Resources Institute. Dan Tunstall is the Director of the Information Program. Norbert Henninger is the Deputy Director of the Information.