UN 'International Year of Deserts' ends with stark warnings
Pastor Dale Morgan
UN 'International Year of Deserts' ends with stark warnings*
ALGIERS, Dec 17 (AFP) Dec 17, 2006
The UN International Year of Deserts and Desertification ended on Sunday
with stark warnings from experts about the expansion of uninhabitable
zones and an increase in climate-driven migration.
Desertification -- the expansion of desert areas, caused by growing
populations and climate changes -- is one of the most important global
issues, UN Under Secretary-General Hans Van Ginkel said at the start of
a three-day conference in the Algerian capital.
"It has become more and more evident that desertification is one of the
most important global challenges, destabilising societies the world
over," said Van Ginkel, who is also rector of the United Nations
University (UNU), a partner in the event involving around 200 experts
from 25 countries.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, host of the conference, said
that desertification "affects a third of the surface of our planet, more
than the surface of China, Canada and Brazil combined," and is a threat
to world peace.
Bouteflika called in a speech opening the event for a concerted, global
effort, saying it was "more urgent that ever" to put into practice
measures agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to tackle
desertification and preserve non-renewable resources.
Around 2 billion people live in areas threatened by desertification.
The implications for human migration are huge, with estimates today
showing that migrants uprooted primarily by environmental factors now
exceed the number of political refugees, according to a UNU statement.
Desertification has been on the world agenda for 50 years but efforts to
arrest the problem have been chronically under-funded, and the situation
is getting demonstrably worse every year, the organization said.
It is still not known precisely how fast the process is unfolding, much
less how best to address it.
One of those in attendance was Professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State
University, who said poor developing-country households must switch to
clean cooking fuels instead of burning crop residue and animal dung.
This will stop the loss of valuable sources of nutrients needed to
forestall desertification and world hunger, Lal said.
By modestly improving soil quality in developing countries, an extra 20
to 30 million tonnes of food per year could be produced -- enough to
feed the number of people being added to their populations annually --
at a cost of less than two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) per year.
Karl Harmsen, director of UNU's Ghana-based Institute for Natural
Resources in Africa, noted estimates that Africa may be able to feed
just 25 percent of its population by 2025 if the decline in soil
conditions continues on the continent.