UN News Centre: Marking the World Day to Combat Desertification, United Nations officials today emphasized the importance of restoring degrading lands to avoid or soften the potentially disastrous impacts of climate change.“Land degradation, caused or exacerbated by climate change, is not only a danger to livelihoods, but also a threat to peace and stability,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the World Day, observed annually on 17 June.
He noted that recovering land that is degrading will have multiple benefits. “We can avert the worst effects of climate change, produce more food and ease competition over resources. We can preserve vital ecosystem services, such as water retention, which protects us from floods or droughts. And a comprehensive and large-scale approach to land recovery can create new jobs, business opportunities and livelihoods, allowing populations to not only survive, but thrive,” he stated.
The theme of this year’s World Day is “Land belongs to the future, let’s climate-proof it.” Studies show that 24 billion tons of fertile soil are being eroded each year, and 2 billion hectares of degraded land have potential for recovery and restoration.
As Member States continue efforts to elaborate a global development agenda beyond the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015, General Assembly President John Ashe encouraged them to work together to mitigate patterns of desertification in order to meet the daily needs of the world’s inhabitants, especially to produce food.
“Climate change can profoundly alter the relationship between water and the land. The amount and quality of the land we have today will be very different from what we will have in the future,” he said in his message....
Desertification in Namibia. Photo: UNEP/A.Gloor/Namibia
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