“Half the world’s population is already facing the consequences of land degradation, with women and girls paying the highest price,” said Antonio Guterres.
“Taking care of our land and its biodiversity can contribute to tackling the climate crisis “and help achieve all the goals of sustainable development”, proposes the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in his message for today World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.
At the beginning of his message, Antonio Guterres acknowledges that droughts are becoming more frequent and intense and that the well-being of millions is at stake due to rising sandstorms, fires, damaged crops, displacement and conflict.
In this context, the UN Secretary-General warns that by the middle of the century, three quarters of people can live with drought. According to Antonio Guterres, climate change has a great responsibility, but so does it the way we manage our land. “Half of the world’s population is already facing the consequences of land degradation, with women and girls paying the highest priceHe observes.
However, the Secretary-General expresses the belief that this downward trend can and must be reversed. Ensuring land and soil productivity is a cheap, pro-poor way to fight climate change and improve the livelihoods and well-being of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. “Empowering women as landowners is also a game changer for land restoration.
We can restore the land with a portion of the amounts currently spent on environmentally harmful subsidies. Every dollar invested in land restoration can yield 30 times more benefits. In Africa, the Great Green Wall of the Sahel “It has already rehabilitated millions of hectares of land and created thousands of jobs, from Dakar to Djibouti.”
At the same time, Antonio Guterres proposes the need to do much more and calls for action “now to shield our future.”
