Journalist-Kenya
[NAIROBI] Land degradation
is major cost leading to loss of some USD490 billion per year to the
international community. This is way higher than the cost of action to prevent
it according to the conclusion of a scientific conference that took place in
took place from 9-12 April in Bonn, Germany.
According to the meeting,
sustainable land management, one of the most affordable tools to prevent land
degradation and to restore degraded land, can help reduce poverty that comes
with ecosystem service benefits for the wider society.
These were some of the
conclusions from the UNCCD 2nd Scientific Conference on the economic assessment
of desertification, sustainable land management and resilience of arid,
semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, which took place from 9-12 April.
“Desertification, land
degradation and drought (DLDD) is also an issue of market failure. The lack of
economic market valuation has led to land being perceived as a cheap resource.
But an investment in sustainable land management is a smart investment and many
farmers worldwide are taking practical steps to address desertification and
land degradation, and to adapt to drought, when they notice a change in their
land productivity,” said Luc Gnacadja, UNCCD Executive Secretary, in his
closing remarks.
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He said the meetings
outcomes should be put into practice and those in attendance need to go back
and run them. “The evidence that was collected needs to be a source of change
at political, private sector and community level. So we need to take the
outcomes and change the season through committed outreach and advocacy using
these findings,” he added.
Scientists, experts, civil
society organizations and media from every region of the world discussed the
economic and social costs of desertification, land degradation and drought, and
the costs of inaction, based on a study titled, “The Economics of
Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought: Methodologies and Analysis for
Decision-Making.”
The four-day meeting was the
first global valuation of these phenomena using a cost-benefit analysis, and
the first economic assessment in over two decades. The study was called for in
2011 by the UNCCD’s Conference of the Parties (COP).
Walter Amman, President of
Global Risk Forum GRF Davos, the organization that led the study, said sustainable
management of natural resources is today more critical than ever to human
survival. The conference, he said, relentlessly showed the importance of
fertile land, undermining the fact that the cost of inactivity in combatting
DLDD is much higher than to take appropriate actions now. “The question is, can
we take a bold step towards zero net land degradation and sustainable
development? I am convinced we can! Scientific knowledge and technology is the
key to sustainable land management,” he said.
Antonio Rocha Magalhães,
the current Chair of the Convention’s Committee on Science and Technology that
was mandated by the Parties to commission the study to a consortium of
independent scientific organizations, will present the results to the COP
meeting in the latter half of the year.
“This conference was an
important benchmark in bringing more science to support actions relating to the
Convention. We know that desertification, land degradation and drought are
serious global problem, and the Rio + 20 Conference called for a land
degradation neutral world. But decision makers act on objective information,
and so far we lack good and well organized information on the economics of
DLDD,” Magalhães said.
However, he said, the conference showed that
the social and economic impacts of DLDD are very high and tend to increase, and
the costs of inaction will be higher than the costs of action. He called for
strong action on DLDD.
“We will bring this information to the parties
during the next COP 11 because strengthening the role of science in the UNCCD
process will be key to improving the effectiveness of policies to combat DLDD
in the world,” Magalhães stated.
The CST, he said, has
identified Scientific and Traditional Knowledge for Sustainable Development
(SCK4SD) as the consortium to organize the UNCCD 3rd Scientific Conference,
with Agropolis International from France as the lead organization. This was in
line with the mandate given by the last COP in 2011,
The theme of the 3rd
Scientific Conference, as agreed by the Parties is ‘Combatting desertification,
land degradation and drought for poverty reduction and sustainable development:
the contribution of science, technology, traditional knowledge and practices’.
The next COP is expected to agree on venue and dates of the next Scientific
Conference.
Ochieng’
Ogodo is a Nairobi based journalist whose works have been
published in various parts of the world including Africa, the US and Europe. He
is the English-speaking Africa and Middle East region winner for the 2008 Reuters-IUCN
Media Awards for Excellence in Environmental Reporting. He is the chairman of
the Kenya Environment and Science Journalists Association. He can be reached at
ochiengogodo@yahoo.com, ochiengogodo@hotmail.com or ochiengogodo@gmail.com
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