Tomorrow Today

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UNESCO’s Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet)

with a total of 8,000 schools in 177 countries.

Informal education initiatives are also part of the

Convention’s strategy. The UNCCD’s informal educa-

tion programme targets everyone from school-age

children to adults. For example, Lupo Alberto, a cartoon

book, educates young people on the importance of

combating desertification. ‘Gaia: the Game of the Earth’,

created by the Italian NGO, Ricerca e Cooperazione,

is a board game for children aged 12 years and older.

The Government of Italy financed both initiatives. In

addition, the National University of Santiago de Estero,

Argentina and a civil society organization, Fundación

del Sur (South Foundation), designed an innovative

education project on combating desertification, targeting

women aged over 60 years without prior art knowledge.

Participants in the project produced paintings under the

theme, ‘Environment Vision of El Chaco from the Visual

Arts’. Story telling, workshops and seminars are the most

common avenues for informal education.

The Convention promotes non-formal education

by encouraging the transfer of indigenous knowledge

and traditional practices across generations, through

exchange visits and activities that involve communities.

Education initiatives on combating desertification

are carried out by many other actors. For example, the

Recoleta School project was part of UNESCO’s education

activities. Local communities, such as the Guédé-Chantier

village in Senegal, have set up an eco-school programme

that educates children to combat encroaching desertifica-

tion.

The Africa Re-Greening Initiative is also supporting

local initiatives to re-green the Sahel region in Africa.

Measuring the success of educational activities

In their biennial reports on the implementation of the

Strategy, Parties to the Convention will report their

performance in education activities. The first reports

on this measure will be submitted at the end of 2010.

Parties will state the number and type of educational

initiatives relating to DLDD carried out by their civil

sustainable land management practices, makes it relevant for all coun-

tries. Moreover, the drivers of desertification are common to the drivers

of land degradation elsewhere. Therefore, assessments of the cost of soil

protection and restoration, as well as efforts to improve livelihoods and

the ecosystems in degraded regions, are relevant to all regions.

Good practice in education

Through education about DLDD, we learn mundane things such

as the nuances between deserts and desertification. We also learn

how to address desertification and land degradation, and to mitigate

the effects of drought in order to achieve sustainable development.

Citizens from the non-affected countries that may view desertifica-

tion as a distant issue learn how their lifestyles may cause or be

affected by desertification and drought that is in faraway places.

Land degradation, which refers to soil degradation, has far-reach-

ing consequences for many realms of life as well. Sustainable land

management is a powerful solution to many of the major challenges

of our time, including deforestation, energy deficits, food insecurity

and poverty. Citizens of drylands countries also learn how to cope

better with these challenges.

Education about DLDD occurs through formal, informal and non-

formal processes.

Formal training may be carried out during classroom instruction or

indirectly by training teachers. For example, in Chile, the Government

of the Netherlands financed an educational programme on desertifi-

cation. A local non-governmental organization, Juventudes para el

Desarrollo y la Producciòn (JUNDEP, which stands for Youth for

Development and Production), trained teachers in the local Recoleta

School in the land management of an area that was highly degraded

through mining and inappropriate agricultural practices. Then, with

the teachers, JUNDEP developed an appropriate curriculum for the

school. Its activities included theoretical learning by the pupils and

teachers, practical training through the establishment of a nursery

and an aboretum, well drilling and maintenance of gardening tools,

and reaping the rewards for these efforts through the sale of produce.

To support such formal initiatives, the UNCCD, in cooperation

with UNESCO, has produced a teachers’ kit, ‘Learning to Combat

Desertification’, for primary schools and a teaching resource kit for

drylands countries to be used in secondary schools. The kit is used as a

tool in the education initiatives under the DESD. It is available through

Clearing land for agribusiness

Land degradation is a global challenge