By Dr Moses Amweelo
DESERTIFICATION, along with climate change and the loss of biodiversity were identified as the greatest challenges to sustainable development during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
Global efforts to halt and reverse land degradation and to strive for zero net land degradation are prerequisites for freeing hundreds of millions of people from poverty, enabling food security, safeguarding water supplies, and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as Sustainable Development Goals. The most important instrument for combating desertification, land degradation is the United Nations Convention to combat Desertification (UNCCD). This convention was established in 1994 with a purpose to combat desertification and it is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. In the 10-year Strategy of the UNCCD (2008-2018), Parties to the Convention agreed “to forge a global partnership to reverse and prevent desertification, land degradation and to mitigate the effects of drought in affected areas in order to support poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.”
Furthermore effective prevention of desertification requires both local management and macro-policy approaches that promote sustainability of ecosystem service. It is advisable to focus on prevention, because attempts to rehabilitate desertified areas are costly and tend to deliver limited results. On the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification (17 June 2012) and on the eve of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Conference, 20 to 22 June 2012), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon sent the following message to all decision-makers worldwide: “Global efforts to halt and reserve land degradation are integral to creating the future we want. Sustainable land use is a prerequisite for lifting billions from poverty, enabling food and nutrition security, and safeguarding water supplies. It is a cornerstone of sustainable development. The people who live in the world’s arid lands, which occupy more than 40 percent of our planet’s land area, are among the poorest and most vulnerable to hunger. We will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 without preserving the soils on which their subsistence depends. Nor will we be able to guarantee our fresh water resources, 70 percent of which are already used for agriculture.
By 2030 the demand for water is projected to rise by 35 percent. Unless we change our land-uses practices, we face the prospect of diminishing and inadequate water supplies, as well as more frequent and intense droughts. Further, by 2050, we will need sufficient productive land to feed an estimated 9 billion people with per capita consumption levels greater than those of today. This will be impossible if soil loss continues at its current pace – an annual loss of 75 billion tonnes. Important land-use decisions need to be made. The former Executive Secretary of UNCCD Luc Gnacadja said: “We shall not adapt to climate change without a sound stewardship of land and soil of this planet. We shall not protect and preserve the terrestrial biodiversity without addressing DLDD. Likewise the millennium development goals will not be fully achieved, if we are not able to improve the livelihoods of one billion people living in the dry lands and ecosystems affected by DLDD.” The question is how can we overcome these challenges? Decision and policy makers at government level do have the lead role in the implementation process of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and for achieving the objectives of the UNCCD Ten-Year Strategy (2008-2018).
Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, with 92% of its land considered semi-arid, arid or hyper-arid and land degradation is a serious issue in the country, and is expected to only worsen in the face of climate change. The country national action programme under the UNCCD called: “The Country Pilot Partnership Programme” (CPP) in Namibia began in 2008 with support from UNDP and financing from the Global Environmental Fund (GEF). The CPP programme has focused on the development and testing of integrated sustainable land management (SLM) practices that would help Namibia combat its chronic land degradation, manifested through vegetation, habitat and soil productivity losses, particularly as the threats of climate change are expected to bring additional multiple challenges. The Namibia CPP examined how best environmental sustainability could be formally incorporated into national development planning processes to address livelihood concerns of the indigenous people. The CPP therefore brought their limited livelihood issues to the fore and proposed solutions that would, among other things, see environmental sustainability mainstreamed into existing natural resource management programmes.
Desertification is caused by a combination of factors that change over time and vary by location. These include indirect factors such as population pressure, socioeconomic and policy factors, and international trade as well as direct factors such as land use patterns and practices and climate-related processes. Major policy interventions and management approaches are needed to prevent and reverse desertification. Assessment of future scenarios shows that major interventions and shifts in ecosystem management will be needed to overcome challenges related to desertification. As recognized by the UNCCD, such interventions are to be implemented at local to global scales, with the active engagement of stakeholders and local communities. Improved information generation and distribution across multimedia platforms using websites and social media will help create enabling conditions for this implementation. Printed and electronic information materials continue to be important means for parliamentarians or youth to raise awareness on desertification, land degradation and drought.
Furthermore, parliamentarians can enact on enabling legislation and standards and align them with the provisions of the UNCCD to make the UNCDD and its strategy more effective. The ‘parliamentary hexagon’ offers a good framework of action to parliaments and their members with a view to mobilizing stronger parliamentary commitment to the successful implementation of the convention, its 10-year strategy and the achievement of a land degradation neutral world. A democracy that delivers is necessary for sustainable human development and the successful implementation of the UNCCD. Ordinary people, the rural and urban populations have to be convinced that policymakers and decision-makers are capable of decisive and effective action. The Scientific Conference which was held in April 2013 in Germany built on recent global initiatives addressing the shortage of economic data to promote and guide the restoration of degraded land, the zero net land degradation target and the minimization of impacts from droughts. The main recommendations of the conference included the improvement of scientific and technical knowledge on economic aspects of sustainable development, and scaling up sustainable land management will require the involvement of scientists in order to restore degraded land worldwide. Moreover, a clearer picture of available options is needed as well as a ‘toolbox’ for stakeholders and decision makers. There is also a need for a stronger focus on DLDD prevention through sustainable land management practices rather than on land rehabilitation and for deliberate efforts for investing in the enhancement of traditional and local institutions, and government effectiveness ought to be paired with efforts to achieve the goal of the zero net land degradation.
Finally, parliaments have the responsibility of holding the executive to account by overseeing its work and making sure that it does not infringe on the rights of citizens or waste state resources and that is consistent with the public interest. Parliaments perform this oversight role in a number of ways, which include regular reports from the executive on its activities; the evaluation of measures taken by government to implement the Convention and strategy, in particular its strategic and operational objectives; monitoring executive actions and ensuring that anti-desertification issues are included in overall government agendas (by means of oral and written questions to the executive, motions, establishment of special commissions or ad hoc committees, hearings, field visits and so on), as well as to ask for the submission of regular green accounting reports on the state of combating poverty, on land and natural resources degradation and on the progress achieved. Parliamentarians are, above all, representatives of the people who have elected them and promote public discourse and serve as channels for conveying the vision of the UNCCD and its strategy to the public and grassroots communities.