UNCCD Confirms World Loses Valuable Agricultural Land

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New Delhi (ABC Live): UNCCD  : A new UN report says that mismanagement of land coupled with the impacts of a changing climate are key factors responsible for the loss of valuable agricultural land. Current management practices in the land-use sector contributes to about 25 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, 169 countries are affected by desertification, with China accounting for the largest population and area affected.

The Global Land Outlook published by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, UNCCD  at a major conference in Ordos, China, also highlights the fact that degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change are intertwined threats to human security.

The authors  of UNCCD report say that the current pressure on land continues to grow unabated due to increasing population, soaring levels of consumption and rising competition for scarce resources.

At the UN meeting in China (UNCCD COP13), Ministers are expected to announce their targets for land restoration, to agree on measures to address the related emerging threats of forced migration, sand and dust storms, and to agree on actions to strengthen the resilience of communities to droughts.

In a significant development, over 110 countries joined a global campaign to make the Sustainable Development Goal target of achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030 a national target for action.

Such efforts are aimed at saving productive land and helping more than a billion people regain food, water, energy and job security, and resilience to climate change.

The first edition of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s (UNCCD) Global Land Outlook (GLO) was published in September 2017. The GLO is a strategic communications platform and publication that demonstrates the central importance of land quality to human well-being, assesses current trends in land conversion, degradation and loss, identifies the driving factors and analyzes the impacts, provides scenarios for future challenges and opportunities, and presents a new and transformative vision for land management policy, planning and practice at global and national scales.

Bringing together a diverse group of international experts and partners, the GLO addresses the future challenges and opportunities for the management and restoration of land resources in the context of sustainable development, including:

  • food, water and energy security;
  • climate change and biodiversity conservation;
  • urban, peri-urban and infrastructure development;
  • land tenure, governance and gender; and
  • migration, conflict and human security.

An integral part of the GLO’s digital platform will be the direct linkage with, and support from, the UNCCD’s Knowledge Hub which allows users to perform advanced searches within the relevant knowledge bases of our partners.