Desertification: Not About Deserts 2

© J.Sawalha UNEP Topham

TUNZA spoke to Luc Gnacadja, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, about an issue that affects us all:

TUNZA: Are modern, intensive farming practices a factor in land degradation? And how does this relate to the rich world’s levels of consumption?

LG: Current increasingly intensive soil use is leading to significant land degradation. Mostly due to erosion, 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil disappear each year.

Virtually everyone in rich countries depends on the drylands for food. The wheat, rye, oats, barley and olives we eat or the cotton clothes we wear have their origins in drylands. But land degradation threatens not only the rich world’s consumption but also global food security. Moreover, if the land is further degraded and becomes no longer productive, rural people will be forced to abandon their farms and migrate somewhere else in order to make a living.

All these things point to the importance of sustainable land management. Farming is needed to feed the ever-increasing population, but this can be done in a sustainable manner so that we no longer degrade arable land. Sustainable land management helps improve local livelihoods, reduce hunger, restore natural ecosystems and mitigate the effects of climate change.

TUNZA: Are you hopeful for the future? What do you feel are the key things that can be done?

LG: Our generation could set humanity on the path to sustainable development or to self-destruction. The good news is we can still chose sustainability by making sustainable agriculture and forestry cornerstones of the green economy. In fact, two-thirds of the degraded lands offer restoration opportunities. Land degradation can be prevented, degraded lands reclaimed and drought mitigated using sustainable techniques for land and water. For that to happen, policy makers, governments, farmers, scientists and communities must work together.

Investment in sustainable land management is a local concern, a national interest and a global obligation. Thus it must be given priority at the local level to increase income, to improve food security and to contribute to poverty reduction; and at the national and global levels to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition, to reduce poverty, to protect the world’s climate, to safeguard natural resources and ecosystem services, and in many cases to preserve cultural heritage.

There is a need to document and evaluate success stories and assess their impact on ecosystem services. Sharing success stories helps others take similar action for achieving their own goals, or for scaling up their practices. Moreover, there is a great need to clarify the impact of different sustainable land-management practices and adapt and optimize them under different conditions. And there is still a need to raise awareness of the causes, the context and the impacts of inappropriate resource use.

TUNZA: And lastly, how can young people in particular help fight desertification in their own lives?

LG: Young people who are enthusiastic about nature and the environment can be frontline players in the collective fight against desertification. I have met many young people who have taken the time to teach themselves about desertification and how they can help drylands by fair trading, tree planting and saving energy. But I wish schools would teach more about desertification and sustainable development to help more young people understand the issues better and support the search for solutions.

Think about this – a drought can occur anywhere, whether in developed or developing countries. But in developed countries, drought doesn’t kill people. What is happening now in Somalia and other East African countries would probably not happen in Australia. I invite young people to think why a drought implies famine in one place and not in another, and what would be the total cost of action now and that of inaction for our common future.

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