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Drylands Not a Lost Cause, U.N. Summit Declares

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 2011 (IPS) - “If this was a meeting about climate change, I am pretty sure that the room would have been more crowded,” Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), commented at a press conference Tuesday.

“I think that we need to change the lenses we use to face the issue of desertification,” he added.

Every minute, 23 hectares of productive land is lost through land degradation, in turn causing the loss of 20 million tonnes of grain every year.

Gathered in New York for the 66th U.N. General Assembly, more than 100 heads of state and government participated in Tuesday’s high- level meeting to spur actions to reverse desertification, develop better policies for sustainable land management and to establish a global scientific panel.

“The world’s drylands are too often an investment desert, seen by governments and the international community as a lost cause,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his remarks at the opening plenary of the meeting in the General Assembly Hall. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

The key to protect drylands from desertification, land degradation and drought lies in maintaining soil health by using Sustainable Land Management (SLM). This technique can be compared to a vaccination for land by managing it without damaging ecological processes or reducing biological diversity.

Since its founding in 1996, the UNCCD has racked up significant successes in land protection and recovery worldwide, accumulation of scientific knowledge about the drivers of land degradation, and education of the leaders and inhabitants of affected countries.

“For instance, farmer-managed natural regeneration and agroforestry techniques – through planting of fertiliser trees on farmlands and grazing lands – have already been adopted in many regions and have contributed to improving over six million hectares across Africa,” said Gnacadja.

In Namibia, one of the driest countries in the world, more than 60 percent of the population depends directly or indirectly on agriculture.

“The threat of land degradation in Namibia is enormous,” said President Hifikepunye Pohamba.

For this reason, the protection of productive land is an official part of the country’s constitution. Article 95, for example, requires the state to protect its ecosystems, while article 92 empowers the state to investigate complains concerning the overuse of natural and non-renewal resources and the destruction of ecosystems.

“Namibia has been one of the countries that has been successful in putting in place frameworks to scale up investment towards sustainable lawn management, early warning and resistance building,” Luc Gnacadja explains. “And you can see the results, compared to other countries that are not yet able to maintain the issue in the national platform.”

The increasing frequency, length and intensity of drought are threatening nearly 1.1 billion people worldwide. More than 2.3 billion people live in arid, semi-arid or dry sub-humid areas – so- called drylands – with a high risk of land degradation.

“Desertification is one of the most complex challenges of our time,” said Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the 66th Session of the General Assembly, in his remarks to the high-level meeting. “It has serious environmental, economic, political and social impacts that affect people, most of whom are poor.”

Notably in countries like Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, the loss of farmland due to desertification is enormous.

“Nowhere is this challenge more critical and the need for action more pressing than in the Horn of Africa,” said Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “The worst drought in 60 years has placed more than 13.3 million people in need of emergency assistance.”

To address desertification in the long term, U.S. President Barack Obama recently launched the global food security initiative Feed the Future. It helps countries to develop their own agricultural sectors to control and reverse desertification.

“By fighting drought and famine in the Horn of Africa today, we fight the despair that can lead people toward violence and terrorism,” Shah said. “When we help a nation feed itself through good times and bad, we break the cycle of food riots, famine and food aid that creates instability throughout regions.”

Even though desertification and land erosion affects the whole world, it is relatively low on the global policy agenda. One of the goals of the UNCCD’s high-level meeting is to change that and to make countries aware of the danger for populations and economies.

“Land is life and our life depends on land,” said Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser. “We must stop the deadly process of desertification, restore health and vitality to our precious earth and protect the livelihoods of people worldwide. This is our responsibility.”