An estimated two billion tons of sand and dust enter the atmosphere each year, wreaking havoc across large parts of Asia and Africa and causing significant damage around the world.
The world is losing nearly a million square kilometers of productive land to sand and dust storms which are getting worse due to human activity, as the United Nations agency against desertification reported today.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) reported that an estimated two billion tons of sand and dust enter the atmosphere each year, wreaking havoc across large parts of Asia and Africa and causing significant economic damage around the world.
In a report released during a session in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to review recent progress in reversing land degradation, the UNCCD said at least a quarter of storms can be attributed to human activities, including of over-mining and over-grazing of pastures.
Losses of surface soils they not only have a material impact on food supplies in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, but also lead to migration, obstructing navigation and creating security risks, said Ibrahim Tiau, UNCCD executive secretary.
“It goes beyond individuals,” he said. “It affects the whole community.”
The UNCCD called for better land management practices to restore damaged land and more efforts to improve early warning systems and build resilience.
Funding efforts to combat desertification and degradation is also a major challenge, Tiau said, noting that just $15 billion was available in 2015-2019 to address problems affecting 126 countries.
He said new incentives and public financial support were needed to incentivize the private sector to take better care of the land it uses.
Tiau named China as one of the success stories in fighting desertification and controlling dust, with long-term land reclamation and a reforestation program helping to reduce sandstorms.
However remains vulnerable to sand coming from Mongolia in the northwhere overgrazing and a mining ‘boom’ have led to the degradation of more than three-quarters of the land, according to a 2021 UN assessment.
With the COP28 UN climate talks approaching, Tiau said a sustainable land restoration program is vital in the fight against global warming, with land use change a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
“We are in a vicious cycle where land degradation is fueling climate change and climate change is exacerbating land loss globally,” he said.
Source: Skai
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