Speakers at the 12th Conference of Parties (COP12) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on Thursday said most conflicts and crises are avoidable.
Monique Barbut, executive secretary of the UNCCD, said: “Biodiversity and climate change receive a lot of attention. But the land issue is overlooked. But land is today pushing the agenda because most of crises and conflicts are centred mainly on land … But this can be avoided.”
She said land is the missing piece of the puzzle.
Since most conflicts takes place over land, combating land degradation and pursuing land reclamation can lessen the pressure by increasing the availability of the contentious commodity, speakers said at a conference event titled “Sustainable Development Goals and Synergy.”
The UNCCD executive secretary said: “You have two billion degraded lands and 500 million abandoned agricultural lands throughout the world. If we restore the abandoned agricultural lands, we will not only ensure food security but also help to adapt to climate change.”
“We can do something to avoid it. It is not complicated. Techniques exist all over the world about how to do it. It is very labour intensive, low technology and most of the time is based on local knowledge and involves the local community. So that can be taught. There is no excuse to what we are letting happen today in terms of land degradation,” Barbut said.
“If we want to fight poverty, if we want to make sure that everyone is getting minimum health care, land should not be degraded and degraded land should be reclaimed,” she said.
Chizuru Aoki, the lead environmental specialist of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) secretariat, said the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a holistic vision for development at the global, national, local and individual levels, towards shared prosperity and well-being for all.
“The 17 elements of the SDGs, ranging from life on land, climate action, zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, ending poverty, to affordable and clean energy, provide a guide for action in key areas to transform our economies,” Aoki said.
She said: “Land degradation is a central part of the transformational SDG agenda. How we protect and manage land resources sustainably and strive for land degradation neutrality, as embodied in SDG Target 15.3, will have impacts on multiple goals. The land agenda embodies the importance of tackling complex, interdependent issues in an integrated manner.”
On the GEF's contribution to achieving the SDGs, she said: “The GEF occupies a unique space in the global partnership for sustainable development and is committed to support the vision of integration embodied in the SDGs.
“The GEF’s contributions are rooted in its role as a financial mechanism for several multilateral environmental agreements, including the UNCCD, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. The GEF supports efforts across multiple, interlinked global environmental domains that are aligned with the SDGs, including the land agenda.”
