Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN
By IDN Environment Desk
(IDN) – Call it land degradation or desertification: it is threatening the livelihoods of more than 1 billion people in 100 countries around the world. To raise awareness and mobilize action against this major economic, social and environmental problem of concern, the United Nations has taken a landmark step.
Five UN agencies forged a global partnership by launching the Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification on August 16. The global launch took place in Fortaleza, Brazil, in the State of Ceara, Brazil’s semi-arid region, during the Second International Conference: Climate, Sustainability and Development in Semi-arid Regions.
The Decade of events is spearheaded by the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in collaboration with the Department of Public Information (DPI) of the UN Secretariat in New York, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and other relevant UN bodies
The regional launch for Africa was held in Nairobi, Kenya, at the headquarters of the UNEP in partnership with the UNDP. Other regional launches are scheduled to take place in New York, in September, for the North American Region, in the Republic of Korea in October, for the Asian Region, and in November for the European region.
This is keeping in view the fact that no continent, except Antarctica, is immune from desertification. The problem is particularly acute in Africa, which has 37 per cent of the world’s arid zones. About 66 per cent of its land is either desert or drylands. The impact is also severe in Asia, which holds 33 per cent of the world’s arid zones.
Degraded areas include the sand dunes of the Syrian Arab Republic, the steep mountain slopes of Nepal, the deserts of Australia and the deforested highlands of the Laos. In the Americas there are deserts that stretch from southern Ecuador along the entire Peruvian shoreline and into northern Chile. Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey are all faced with desertification.
The effects of desertification are often felt far beyond the regions where it is occurring. Airborne particles affect cloud formation and rainfall patterns. Dust storms from the Gobi Desert affect visibility in Beijing. Dust from the Sahara has been implicated in respiratory problems in North America and has affected Caribbean reefs.
"Continued land degradation — whether from climate change, unsustainable agriculture or poor management of water resources — is a threat to food security, leading to starvation among the most acutely affected communities and robbing the world of productive land," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a statement announcing the launch of the Decade.
"As we begin the Decade on Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, let us pledge to intensify our efforts to nurture the land we need for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and guaranteeing human well-being," he added.
Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD, warned that the international community is at a crossroads, and must decide between a business-as-usual approach that will be characterised by severe and prolonged droughts, flooding and water shortages or an alternative path, that "channels our collective action towards sustainability".
He added that the Decade’s message stresses that land is life, "so, we must ensure the drylands, remain productive and working" and that the vision for the Decade is to "forge a global partnership to reverse and prevent desertification and land degradation and to mitigate the effects of drought in affected areas in order to support poverty reduction and environmental sustainability".
UNCCD is along with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emerged from the Earth Summit in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
UNCCD is often regarded as an African convention. Gnacadja said in a recent IDN interview: "Of course Africa has been referred to because Africa is the most vulnerable. Two-thirds of the continent is dyland but it is a global convention, with global scope. 41 percent of the total land mass is drylands and 34 percent of the global population lives in the drylands. Among that 34 percent, one billion are really the poorest among the poor of the world.
"So this is really where we need to change the perception: UNCCD is a global convention, with global scope and of course with global benefits to be delivered. For instance, when you are reclaiming land, land is long-term food security. Food security is not about Africa only. When you are rehabilitating land or improving land cover, it is not only about Africa. So it’s a kind of paradigm that requires a paradigm shift. And we are working on this."
While concerns about desertification are growing, it is not all doom and gloom. Efforts have been made to address land degradation and while there have been positive outcomes, more action is needed to arrest and reverse land degradation and creeping desertification worldwide.
IFAD pointed to the experience of Bedouin communities in the Badia rangelands, 10 million hectares in central and eastern Syria, known for its poor soils and low rainfall.
After years of severe drought and intensive grazing, the Badia has become badly degraded, but vegetation has been restored in one third of the area, with Bedouin herders working with project experts to draft and implement management plans to determine how many animals should graze in a given area at a given time.
That scheme, just one of numerous success stories, took a three-pronged approach to rehabilitation: resting, re-seeding and planting.
“When governments, UN agencies and other partners work together, we can ensure that experiences like those of the Bedouin communities in the Badia rangelands become the rule – and not the exception,” IFAD said.
And yet desertification affects 3.6 billion hectares of land worldwide — or 25% of the Earth’s terrestrial land mass. 110 countries at risk of land degradation. 12 million hectares of land, an area the size of Benin, are lost every year. Annual land lost could produce 20 million tons of grain. US$42 billion in income is lost every year from desertification and land degradation.
Established in 1994, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is the sole legally biding international agreement linking environment, development and the promotion of healthy soils. The Convention’s 193 signatory countries, or Parties, work to alleviate poverty in the drylands, maintain and restore the land’s productivity and mitigate the effects of drought. The Convention expects Iraq to be its 194th member next week with Iraq’s accession on August 28, 2010. (IDN-InDepthNews/17.08.2010)
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