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L
iving
L
and
on the expert judgement of scientists. It produced a world
map of human-induced soil degradation and concluded
that 15 per cent of the land surface was degraded. But it
got outdated quickly.
The first comprehensive assessment of the status of deser-
tification, land degradation and drought on a global level
is the 2005
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(MEA). It is a
well-researched presentation of the status and the economic,
social and cultural values of the dryland regions of the world.
It brought to the attention of the international community
the consequences, at the global level, of failing to combat
land degradation or mitigate the effects of drought. The MEA
remains a valuable resource for policymakers, activists and
the scientific community. But it focuses on drought and land
degradation in fragile ecosystems only, that is, the arid, semi-
arid and dry-sub-humid zones of the world. Thus, it does
not tell us the status of land degradation worldwide. And the
publication is still fairly technical, which has kept it inacces-
sible to the general reader, in spite of its immense value.
The
Global Assessment of Land Degradation and Improvement
(GLADA) was published in 2008 and offers a deeper analysis
of land degradation.
2
It reveals the scope of land degradation
in all types of ecosystems and the global population affected,
but also probes where land is improving. Indeed, a fair assess-
ment of the status of land degradation must take into account
the amount of degrading land and the unproductive land
being restored back to health.
According to GLADA, 24 per cent of the global land area is
degrading. Some of these are new areas and not just in Africa.
Land degradation was also evident in Australia, Asia, Latin
America and North America. In short, this is a global phenom-
enon. GLADA uncovered other significant results. About 78
per cent of the degrading land is not in the dryland areas, but
in the humid areas; 16 per cent of the land area is improving;
and 1.5 billion people depend directly on degrading land. The
study also drew attention to the release of greenhouse gasses
through land degradation. In spite of the study’s ground-
breaking data, its highly scientific orientation means it didn’t
capture the imagination of the general public.
At about the time the study was released, the international
community celebrated the International Year of Deserts and
Desertification. In light of a persistent lack of awareness about
the scope and causes of desertification and the solutions to the
problem, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2010 to
2020 the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against
Desertification. The purpose of the decade is to raise global
awareness of desertification, land degradation and drought at all
levels. This year, 2015, marks the half-way point of the decade.
What has changed?
The adoption of the 10-year (2008-2018) strategic framework
for the implementation of the Convention was a watershed
moment in the global efforts to combat land degradation. It
embraced science as the guide to policymaking in the global
efforts to combat land degradation and drought. The science
is today more robust and growing, and the Science and Policy
Interface (SPI) established in 2013 is facilitating dialogue
between scientists and policymakers.
More than 1.5 billion people depend on degrading lands, but land degradation is not fated, where there is political will
Image: Ricardo Spencer & UNCCD 2013 Photo Contest