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ENVIRONMENT: Sands Running Out for UN Desertification Treaty

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 3 2007 (IPS) - Concrete, firm and effective steps need to be taken by governments at the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, inaugurated in Spain’s capital Monday by the prince and princess of Asturias.

And industrialised countries should take the lead, said Teo Oberhuber, coordinator of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Environmentalists in Action (EenA), who told IPS that “unless a critical point is reached that gives the Convention real capabilities, it will become a dead letter.”

According to Oberhuber, who is participating in the conference, developed countries must commit adequate funding, especially the United States, “which must be pressured strongly by other countries, otherwise it will continue to be an inactive member of this Convention, which ought to be an effective tool to combat desertification, but is still failing to do so.”

The aim of the Convention, which was adopted in 1994 and went into effect two years later, is to combat desertification and curb the effects of drought in countries severely affected by the problem, especially in Africa, by promoting international cooperation and effective measures at all levels.

Some 2,000 people are attending the conference, which will continue until Sept. 14. They include representatives from 191 countries as well as environmental groups and NGOs, U.N. officials and representatives of other international bodies.

At the inauguration Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia of Asturias were accompanied by Cristina Narbona, Spain’s environment minister, and Gregoire de Kalbermatten, the executive secretary of the Convention.

Narbona told IPS she hoped that as well as discussing the causes and consequences of desertification, practical strategies will be arrived at, because there is a need for urgent solutions to a scourge that affects one-third of the earth’s land surface and threatens the lives of 1.2 billion people.

To contribute more effectively, Spain is offering to host a European Centre for the study of drought and desertification in the northeastern city of Barcelona. The Convention, signed in 1994, was adopted by the European Union on Mar. 9, 1998.

The European Networking Initiative on Desertification (eniD) and EenA organised a rally under the banner “A Convention Without Action Causes Desertification,” held in front of the Palacio de Congresos while the conference got underway inside.

The Prince of Asturias and heir to the Spanish crown, Felipe de Borbón, emphasised in his speech that guaranteeing environmental rights requires preventing poverty and taking effective action against it.

This implies “expanding environmental rights worldwide,” he said.

After the inauguration, delegates and experts at the conference agreed over lunch that desertification is an extremely serious problem in Central Asia and the Sahel, a band of semi-arid land south of the Sahara desert, in Africa.

The desert’s encroachment on the poor countries of these regions makes combating desertification difficult.

EenA and eniD distributed leaflets at their rally stating that “the Africans who cross the sea to reach the Canary Islands or the European mainland are often obliged to do so by desertification, or soil degradation in arid regions.”

That is why they are urging the conference to adopt immediate measures in the field, and to involve civil society in order to achieve sustainable development in arid zones, which is another way to combat desertification.

The activists say that “Spain is an excellent example of what is happening at the global level. It is experiencing severe degradation and loss of fertile soil, and it is also experiencing the destabilising effects of migration, a global phenomenon.”

According to the Environment Ministry, one-third of Spain’s territory is under threat of desertification: 159,000 square kilometres out of a total of 506,000 are classified as being at high risk or very high risk. In three of the 17 autonomous communities into which the country is divided – Murcia, Valencia and Canarias – more than 90 percent of the land is at this level of risk.

The environmentalists add that “more than two billion people in dry areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia depend mainly on agriculture for their daily bread. Desertification is affecting 1.2 billion of them, according to U.N. sources.”

“If developed countries continue to ignore the problem of soil degradation, they will ultimately pay a high social and economic price,” they say.

“The annual cost of global desertification is estimated to be in excess of 42 billion dollars, including production losses and destruction of natural resources, while the cost of combating desertification is estimated at between 10 and 22 billion dollars a year,” they say.

They concluded, relatively optimistically, that “if action is taken now, soil conservation and rehabilitation is still possible.”

When the conference ends on Sept. 14, it will be known whether this optimism is justified, as many people hope, or whether inaction will remain the order of the day.