Top soil alarm

Ahead of the first high-level meeting on desertification at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification said on Monday world leaders needed to adopt a "vaccine" against land degradation.

That vaccine had been "tried and tested" in southeast Asia, parts of Africa and Australia, and now needed to be rolled out worldwide with heavy investment in sustainable land management.

Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), said politicians needed to get serious about preventing land degradation if they want to secure global food supplies for the future and prevent conflict.

"We need to scale up what works," Gnacadja told Deutsche Welle at the UNCCD headquarters in Bonn.

But he added there had been a lack of political will, funding, and media interest.

In concrete terms, Gnacadja said nations needed to improve the management of land and water to raise the productivity of soil and increase people's access to markets.

Africa is worst affected

According to the convention's figures, land degradation – or erosion of the topsoil necessary for farming – claims 12 million hectares of land every year.

Especially poorer regions in Latin America, Asia, the northern Mediterranean, and central and Eastern Europe are vulnerable to land degradation, but the worst affected was Africa.

Gnacadja wants governments to make addressing the erosion of topsoil a policy priority.

He said governments should capitalise on a momentum that was growing, with next week's high-level meeting in New York and the 10th session of the UNCCD's decision making body in South Korea this October.

International environmental policy efforts will step up another gear in Durban at the "earth summit" this December.

Author: Zulfikar Abbany
Editor: Andreas Illmer