1 day Ago By Guardian Nigeria
For the first time, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) parties have decided to encourage the sustainable management, restoration and conservation of rangelands — vast ecosystems used for grazing — ahead of COP17, to be hosted by Mongolia next year. The ecosystems cover half of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and are the dominant land use in the world’s drylands but have long been overlooked and are disappearing faster than rainforests. The degradation of rangelands threatens one-sixth of global food supplies, potentially depleting one-third of the Earth’s carbon reserves.
Some two billion people who live in pastoral areas are among the world’s most vulnerable in the face of desertification, land degradation and drought. Drought and land loss will have dire consequences for the climate, biodiversity and people’s livelihoods, as well as businesses, large and small. The global economy could lose $23 trillion by 2050 through degradation UNCCD has warned that halting this trend would cost around $4.
6 trillion, a fraction of the predicted losses. According to the UN, droughts have surged by nearly 30 per cent in frequency and intensity since 2000, threatening agriculture and water security, while up to 40 per cent of the world’s land is degraded, which means its biological or economic productivity has been reduced. Specifically, the United Nations land conference held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia also agreed on the creation of a Caucus for Indigenous Peoples and a Caucus for Local Communities to ensure that their unique perspectives and challenges are adequately represented; a continuation of the Convention’s Science-Policy Interface to strengthen science-based decision-making; and the mobilization of private sector engagement under the Business4land initiative.
UNCCD estimates that at least $2.6 trillion in total investments are needed by 2030 to restore more than one billion hectares of degraded land and build resilience to drought. This equals $1 billion in daily investments between now and 2030 to meet global land restoration targets and combat desertification and drought.
New pledges for large-scale land restoration and drought preparedness were announced, such as the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership, which attracted $12.15 billion to support 80 of the world’s most vulnerable countries in building their resilience to drought, including a $10 billion pledge from the Arab Coordination Group. The Great Green Wall (GGW), an African-led initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, also mobilised EUR 11 million from the Italian Government for landscape restoration in the Sahel and EUR 3.
6 million from the Austrian Government to strengthen the coordination and implementation of the initiative across 22 African countries. The drive is part of the GGW Accelerator, a UNCCD-supported effort to achieve the ambitions for a greener, more prosperous Sahel. Nearly 200 countries convened at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the UNCCD committed to prioritising land restoration and drought resilience in national policies and international cooperation as an essential strategy for food security and climate adaptation.
Nations also made significant progress in laying the groundwork for a future global drought regime, which they intend to complete at COP17. Also, more than $12 billion was pledged to tackle desertification, land degradation and drought around the world, especially in the most vulnerable countries. The declaration ‘Sacred land’ presented during the inaugural Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at a UNCCD COP, underscored the role of indigenous peoples in sustainable resource management and called for greater involvement in global land and drought governance, including through participation in land restoration efforts.
“Today, history has been made”, said Indigenous People representative Oliver Tester from Australia. “We look forward to championing our commitment to protect Mother Earth through a dedicated Caucus and leave this space trusting that our voices be heard.” COP16 also saw the biggest youth participation to date, building on the UNCCD Youth Engagement Strategy and Action Plan that seeks to give youth a more prominent role in land and drought negotiations, and action and provide technical and financial support for youth-led initiatives.
On the gender front, countries underscored the need to pay special attention to all forms of discrimination faced by women and girls when designing and implementing policies and programmes related to land degradation and drought. In recognition of the important role of the private sector, which currently contributes only 6 per cent of financing towards land restoration and drought resilience, parties mandated the UNCCD Secretariat and the Global Mechanism to mobilise private sector engagement under the Business4Land initiative. The decision emphasised the critical role of private sector advocacy, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies, and sustainable finance in addressing Desertification, land degradation and droughts (DLDD) challenges.
The decision comes after the Business4Land Forum, which brought together the largest-ever number of private sector participants at a UNCCD COP — more than 400— from industries like finance, fashion, agri-food, and pharmaceuticals. Acknowledging the role of science as the foundation for sound policies, the parties agreed on the continuation of UNCCD’s Science-Policy Interface (SPI), which was created at COP11 in 2013 to translate scientific findings into recommendations for decision-makers. At COP16, for instance, the SPI presented definitive evidence that three-quarters of the Earth’s ice-free surface has become permanently drier in the past 30 years, with a predicted five billion people living in drylands by 2100, showing the urgency to act.
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