Prevention Vital As world's Deserts grow
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Prevention Vital As world's Deserts grow*
Deserts cover 41 percent of the world's surface and desertification
menaces about 250 million people on five continents.
by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 27, 2006
Parched Asian nations such as Mongolia and China must act swiftly to
prevent the creeping spread of deserts which costs the global economy 42
billion dollars a year, a UN expert said Thursday.
"Regaining lost land is too expensive. Prevention is the only solution
for countries that do not have enough resources," said Hama Araba
Diallo, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification.
Israel was one example of a country that had managed to regain land lost
to spreading desert but at a high technological cost, the UN expert said.
"For farmers in Mali or Mongolia, we can only say 'please protect that
topsoil from washing away'," he told reporters at the Foreign
Correspondents' Club of Japan, adding that thousands of years were
needed for topsoil to recover to a state where it could yield crops.
Land degradation causes crop losses of around 42 billion dollars a year,
according to the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), which has declared
2006 a year of focus on deserts and desertification.
The UN estimates that about 27 percent of China is now desert and
economic losses from growing dust bowls there amount to 6.5 billion
dollars a year. Central Asian countries are also affected by land
degradation.
Countries, especially developing countries, must integrate more
desertification prevention measures into their economic policies to
tackle the effects on agriculture, the economy, health and society,
Diallo said.
Deserts cover 41 percent of the world's surface and desertification
menaces about 250 million people on five continents. Some 1.2 billion
people in the world's 110 poorest states are under threat, according to
the UN.
The main causes are believed to be over-harvesting, cattle-breeding and
overgrazing, deforestation and climate change.
The most endangered region is Africa, especially in the south and in the
Sahel countries bordering the Sahara Desert, followed by Central Asia
and China, UN experts warn.
Source: Agence France-Presse