Combating Desertification and Drought

Q&A: Holistic Land Management – Only a Movement can Prevent Desertification

By Busani Bafana
Desertification is not cheap. It has social, cultural, environmental and of course economic costs to reverse what it destroys.

Translating Ambition to Action: High Hopes for United Nations Action Week

By Cameron Diver
In less than 10 days, countries from around the planet will come together in New York for the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit. I look forward to representing the Pacific Community (SPC) at this important event, and throughout “Action Week” during the upcoming UN General Assembly.

India Promotes South-South Cooperation, but Key Questions Unaddressed

By Joydeep Gupta
At his speech at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) summit in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised South-South cooperation and technology solutions, but issues of land ownership dog the ongoing negotiations. As the second week of the UNCCD Conference of Parties (COP) kicked off in Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted South-South cooperation and issues of land degradation.

World leaders call for global action to restore degraded land

By UNCCD Press Release
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on the international community to set up a global water action agenda as the central theme to achieve land degradation neutrality. He announced that India will restore an additional 5 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, raising the land to be restored in India to 26 million hectares.

Desertification Costs World Economy up to 15 trillion dollars – U.N.

By James Reinl
Forest fires, droughts and other forms of land degradation cost the global economy as much as 15 trillion dollars every year and are deepening the climate change crisis, a top United Nations environment official said Friday.

Achieving Global Consensus on How to Slow Down Loss of Land

By Ranjit Devraj
Expectations are high, perhaps too high, as the 14th Conference of the Parties (CoP 14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), now into the third day of its two-week session, is being held outside the smog-filled Indian capital of New Delhi.

Let’s Walk the Talk to Defeat Climate Change – African Leaders Told

By Isaiah Esipisu
African leaders have been asked to walk the talk, and lead from the front, in order to build resilience and adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change on the continent.

Pushing For a Green Economy & Clean Energy

By Zipporah Musau
Africa is grappling with myriad environmental and climate challenges, from drought to loss of biodiversity, cyclones and plastics pollution.

What Would It Really Take to Plant a Trillion Trees?

By Tim Christophersen
Tree planting is capturing the minds of those who look for fast climate action. Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Government announced a new world record: thousands of volunteers planted 353 million trees in one single day. This came shortly after a team of scientists identified suitable places in the world where up to 1 trillion new trees could be planted. Such a massive effort could absorb about 20 years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions. And on 8 August 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launched a Special Report on the importance of land use for the climate. About 23 per cent of all emissions come from the agriculture, land use and forest sector. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlines land management opportunities with benefits for food security, biodiversity, and the climate, such as agroforestry.

Burning Forests for Rain, and Other Climate Catastrophes

By Miriam Gathigah
The villagers living on the foothills of Mount Kenya have a belief: If they burn the forest, the rains will come.

Land Degradation Jeopardizes Ability to Feed the World

By Ibrahim Thiaw
We have known for over 25 years that poor land use and management are major drivers of climate change, but have never mustered the political will to act.

Desertification a Frontline Against Climate Change: IPCC

By James Reinl
A new United Nations report has described farming, land degradation and desertification as critical frontlines in the battle to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 2 degrees Celsius.

Extreme Floods, the Key to Climate Change Adaptation in Africa’s Drylands

By Isaiah Esipisu
Extreme rainfall and heavy flooding, often amplified by climate change, causes devastation among communities. But new research published on Aug. 7 in the scientific journal Nature reveals that these dangerous events are extremely significant in recharging groundwater aquifers in drylands across sub-Saharan Africa, making them important for climate change adaptation.

What a Little Pigeon Could Teach Our World

By Greg Benchwick
Over 100 years ago a little brown passenger pigeon named Martha died in the Cincinnati Zoo. She was the last of her breed. Just like that, in an instant, a bird species that had once numbered in the billions was wiped out forever.

Money Grows on Trees–Don’t Uproot Them

By Friday Phiri
Jennifer Handondo, a small scale farmer of Choma district in southern Zambia, plants food crops such as maize mostly for her family’s needs. Because of uncharacteristically high temperatures and low rainfall during the rainy season in March, the divorced mother who single-handedly supports her three children, has not been able to harvest as much as she usually does. So she has diversified into selling seedlings of neem, Moringa and other medicinal trees.

Horn of Africa Drought Threatens Re-run of Famines Past

By James Reinl
Humanitarian groups and the United Nations are warning of another drought in the Horn of Africa, threatening a repeat of the deadly dry spell and famine that claimed lives in Somalia and its neighbours eight years ago.

Avoiding the Mistakes of the Asian Green Revolution in Africa

By Isaiah Esipisu
Research scientists are studying groundwater resources in three African countries in order to understand the renewability of the source and how people can use it sustainably towards a green revolution in Africa.

Drought, Disease and War Hit Global Agriculture, Says U.N.

By James Reinl
The United Nations has warned of drought, disease and war preventing farmers from producing enough food for millions of people across Africa and other regions, leading to the need for major aid operations.

Why Environmental and Humanitarian Action Must Be Linked

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Environmental and humanitarian action is often understood as two different sectors. However, the lack of awareness regarding its intersections could lead to further long-term devastation.

Chilean Schools Recycle Greywater to Combat Drought

By Orlando Milesi
Children from the neighboring municipalities of Ovalle and Río Hurtado in northern Chile are harvesting rain and recycling greywater in their schools to irrigate fruit trees and vegetable gardens, in an initiative aimed at combating the shortage of water in this semi-arid region.

Food From Thought

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
As the weather continues to change and land becomes degraded, the socio-economic security implications are vast. In an effort to tackle these issues, climate-smart agriculture is quickly gaining traction around the world.
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