Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Combating land degradation for sustainable agriculture

Commodity Online: The World Day to Combat Desertification is celebrated every year on June 17 all over the world in order to highlight the urgent need to curb the process of desertification and to strengthen the visibility of this serious drylands issue on the international environmental agenda.

17 June constitutes a unique occasion to remind everybody that desertification can be effectively tackled, that solutions are possible, and that key tools to this aim lay in strengthened community participation and co-operation at all levels. The theme of this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, “Desertification and Climate Change — One Global Challenge”, reminds us that climate change and desertification interact with each other at a variety of levels. They are two major manifestations of the same problem. And together they seriously threaten our ability to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Another environmental issue of growing urgency today is climate change. This is reflected in the theme for this year’s World Day, which focuses on the important synergy between desertification and climate change. The Day will draw attention to the significant benefits of an integrated approach to tackling these two major environmental challenges…..

Kelso Dunes in California, shot by Mark A. Wilson, who has generously released it into the public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Thank you, Mark

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