LAND acts as the primary source of food. More than eight billion people still draw 99.9 per cent of food from land. Out of agriculture, the first human intervention in the nature, emerged communities, which ultimately brought in pollution. Records show that civilisation has spoilt most of the land people lived on. Neolithic revolution caused changes in the terrestrial ecosystem which began about 12,000 years ago, The Industrial Revolution in the 1780s and the Green Revolution in the 1960s brought humans prosperity but the pollution they produced snatched away many things and caused, in some areas, irreversible damage to the environment leading to global warming, land degradation and the loss of biodiversity.
Up to 40 per cent of the global land is degraded. For more than 40 years, nearly a third of the world鈥檚 cropland has been abandoned as erosion made it unproductive. Every year, 75 billion tonnes of fertile soil are lost because of land degradation. Dry land is home to a third of the world鈥檚 population mostly living in developing countries, who are the most vulnerable members of society. The economic impact of land degradation is extremely severe in the densely populated South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, land degradation causes an estimated loss of $42 billion a year from agricultural production. More than a half of global gross domestic product comes from land. Land degradation already threatens the livelihood and security of more than three billion people. A million species face extinction because of habitat loss.
Against this backdrop, the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification decided to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030. Accordingly, global voluntary commitments to restoring degraded land have reached one billion hectares by 2030. Against this backdrop, the UNCCD COP16 is going to take place in Riyadh in 2鈥�13 December that coincides with the convention鈥檚 30th anniversary. This will be an event to raise global ambition and accelerate action on land and drought resilience through a people-oriented approach. Governments, businesses and civil society are expected to scale up and speed up land restoration in all parts of the world as a cost-effective solution to the Sustainable Development Goals under the theme of 鈥極ur Land, Our Future鈥�.
With the advancement of science and technology, humans earned a huge capacity to change the natural environment within a relatively short time. Anthropogenic causes 鈥� mostly the explosion of global population that led to an increased and diversified demand for ecosystem services such as food, fibre, industrial raw materials, etc ultimately putting pressure on finite land resources 鈥� are responsible for land degradation globally.
Wars and colonisation have been the cause of land degradation in many parts of the world and always exploited natural resources without paying attention to the local people that persistently weakened their economic base and resilience. Further, compared with least developed and developing nations, life expectancy and exceptionally high consumption patterns of developed nations put an extraordinary burden on the environment, leading to climate change that accelerated the rate of land degradation and drought than any other time in the history.
Global climate change disproportionately affects small-holder farmers, the landless and share-croppers that ultimately increases disparity in society of agrarian nations as agriculture is the worst affected sector. An inequitable use of shared resources such as water by unilateral, upstream withdrawal increases soil and water salinity. So, land degradation should not be viewed as a mere environmental issue. It is, rather, a socio-political issue, too.
The earth鈥檚 finite stock of 鈥榥atural capital鈥� is rapidly depleting because of the way humans use it. Feeding a projected 10 billion people by 2050 from declining natural resources will be a Herculean task. We should, therefore, address the root causes of land degradation. To achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030, the UNCCD COP16 must pay due attention to victims of land degradation and drought, discuss vulnerabilities and opportunities to prosper to foster a viable engagement in sustainable land management, provide all-out supports for governments to mainstream sustainable land management, ensure an equitable use of shared resources and reorient land administration from mere revenue generation to conservation.
Research and development, knowledge management, an enabling environment for an effective engagement of the youth, global population control and redesigning current consumption pattern, environmentally-friendly design of development schemes, technology transfer and ways and means for allocation of adequate resources should also be in focus.
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Dr Md Sohrab Ali is additional director general in the environment department.