A global agreement on controlling land degradation by 2015 ?

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UN targets global land degradation deal in 2015

Last updated on 15 September 2013

By Ed King

UNCCD chief Luc Gnacadja says land degradation is now a “critical” issue with huge economic and social implications. The head of the UN’s desertification convention wants a global agreement on controlling land degradation to be signed off by 2015.

EXCERPT

An economic assessment published by the UN in April revealed 12 million hectares of land are transformed into man made deserts on an annual basis, with associated costs of US$490 billion a year.

Speaking ahead of a two week summit in Windhoek, Namibia, the head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Luc Gnacadja said countries needed to accept the urgency of the situation.

“This is going to be critical if the world is going to face the challenge of feeding nine billion people and even more by 2050,” he told RTCC.

“We need to preserve the resource base of food production, and if we are to feed a thirsty world, where there is a need for more water, we need to avoid land degradation, which is the driver of loss of surface water.”

Effective options

An enduring frustration for many scientists and policymakers is that solutions are relatively simple and accessible.

The rehabilitation of Jordan’s rangelands and success of agroforestry in Niger are two commonly cited examples of successful attempts to reverse degradation.

“Quite a lot of degradation comes from farming practices considered to be the best option economically but actually are not — not even in the short term,” says Davies.

Lindsay Stringer, Director of the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, says a bigger problem is our lack of understanding why advice is often ignored.

“It’s easy to say plough across the slopes rather than down the slopes or leave fields fallow, but people don’t. And we need to understand why that is,” she said. “It’s more the human behaviour and farmer decision making side of things that we don’t understand.”

Rather than another set of targets, she wants to see the UN outline a trajectory for how it can address degradation in the coming decades, with an added focus on providing local communities with solutions.

– See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/2013/09/15/un-targets-global-land-degradation-deal-in-2015/#sthash.CpQYrWDc.dpuf

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Originally published at desertification.wordpress.com on February 6, 2015.