The rallying call for this year’s
celebration of the World Day to Combat Desertification is “Our Land. Our Home.
Our Future.”
The slogan draws global attention to
the central role productive land can play in turning the growing tide of
migrants abandoning unproductive land into communities and nations that are
stable, secure and sustainable, into the future.
“Migration is high on the political agenda all over the world as some rural
communities feel left behind and others flee their lands. The problem signals a
growing sense of hopelessness due to the lack of choice or loss of livelihoods.
And yet productive land is a timeless tool for creating wealth,” says Ms.
Monique Barbut, the United Nations top advisor on combatting desertification
and drought. “This year, let us engage in a campaign to re-invest in rural
lands and unleash their massive job-creating potential, from Burkina Faso,
Chile and China, to Italy, Mexico, Ukraine and St. Lucia”.
She added that “the possibility for success today is greater than ever before.
More than 100 of the 169 countries affected by desertification or drought are
setting national targets to curb a run-away land degradation by the year 2030.
Investing in the land will create local jobs and give households and
communities a fighting chance to live, which will, in turn, strengthen national
security and our future prospects for sustainability”.
Burkina Faso will host the global observance of the World Day to showcase the
political commitment and proactive steps the region is taking to tackle the
migration and land degradation challenges.
The West African country hosted the 2005 Heads of State Summit for the
Sahel-Saharan countries where 11 countries reached an agreement to restored
degraded land on an 8000 kilometer stretch of land cutting across the Sahel.
The initiative is now popularly known as the Great Green Wall for the Sahara
and Sahel.
“Since the early 1980s, we have been
rehabilitating degraded land by building on our traditional techniques such as
the Zaï or adopting new techniques that work, such as farmer managed natural
regeneration,” said Mr. Batio Bassiere, Minister of Environment, Green Economy
and Climate Change of Burkina Faso. “We intend to be land degradation neutral
by 2030. We are hosting the global observance on 17 June because we want to
show the world, what we have achieved and is possible in order to inspire
everyone into action”.
The United Nations designated 17 June as the World Day to Combat
Desertification to raise public awareness about the challenges of
desertification, land degradation and drought and to promote the implementation
of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those countries
experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa.
Scientists
have called for an urgent action to halt spread of the fall armyworm which
threatens food security in Africa.
