2020 Desertification and Drought Day
2020 Desertification and Drought Day will focus on links between consumption and land.
Desertification and Drought Day, a United Nations observance day held on 17 June each year, will in 2020 focus on changing public attitudes to the leading driver of desertification and land degradation: humanity’s relentless production and consumption.
Desertification and Drought Day – until this year known as The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought – is observed every year to promote public awareness of international efforts to combat desertification. The day is a unique moment to remind everyone that land degradation neutrality is achievable through problem-solving, strong community involvement and co-operation at all levels.
As populations become larger, wealthier and more urban, there is far greater demand for land to provide food, animal feed and fibre for clothing. Meanwhile, the health and productivity of existing arable land is declining, worsened by climate change.
To have enough productive land to meet the demands of ten billion people by 2050, lifestyles need to change. Desertification and Drought Day, running under the slogan “Food. Feed. Fibre.” seeks to educate individuals on how to reduce their personal impact.
Food, feed and fibre must also compete with expanding cities and the fuel industry. The end result is that land is being converted and degraded at unstainable rates, damaging production, ecosystems and biodiversity.
- Today, more than two billion hectares of previously productive land is degraded
- Over 70 per cent of natural ecosystems have been transformed. By 2050, this could hit 90 per cent
- By 2030, food production will require an additional 300 million hectares of land
- By 2030, the fashion industry is predicted to use 35 per cent more land – over 115 million hectares, equivalent to the size of Colombia
Food, feed, fibre is also contributing to climate change, with around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions coming from agriculture, forestry and other land use. Clothing and footwear production causes 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure predicted to rise almost 50 per cent by 2030.
"The rapid and negative economic and social impacts of COVID-19 worldwide show the consequences of land use change are underestimated. The failure to slow and reverse the process of land use change may come at a very high cost in the future. It is in our interest, therefore, to ensure that as part of building back better, we take steps to help nature recover so that it works with and for, not against us,” says Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
“On the policy level, building back better means ensuring the policies to pre-empt or minimize land use change exist. On the practical level, it means the incentives to inspire consumers and producers to avoid land use change are provided. Both call for a world where people accept the right to draw from nature comes with the responsibility to take care of it – a social contract for nature,” Thiaw added.
Detailed information about the observance is available on the UNCCD Website:
No comments:
Post a Comment