Global desertification meet opens in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES - The First Global Scientific Conference Supporting UN Efforts to Curb Desertification opens in this city in Argentina 21 September and ends 2 October. Top scientists are meeting to discuss drylands, desertification and climate change. They are also determined to make the case that thwarting desertification in drylands is viable and also critical to the success of a new climate change international protocol.

This is the first such event to be held in support of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Organized by the Dryland Science for Development (DSD) Consortium, the event (officially titled 'Understanding Desertification and Land Degradation Trends') is being held in connection with the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the UNCCD.

The Conference highlights the importance of developing and implementing science-based methods for monitoring and assessing land degradation and underlines the need for a holistic approach to understanding and overcoming the devastating impact of desertification.

Some 20% of the drylands of the world have deteriorated due to human misuse and global warming. This is significant because drylands make up 40% of the world's land area, and 35% of the world's population live there.

We need to view drylands as the front lines in our global effort to help the rural poor cope with climate change,' says William Dar, Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a DSD member supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Dar also chairs UNCCD´s Committee on Science and Technology (CST), under whose auspices the conference is being organized by the DSD Consortium.

We must clearly demonstrate progress in helping them deal with those limitations of today,' says Mahmoud Solh, Chair of the DSD Consortium, 'if they are to have any hope of adapting to climate change tomorrow.' Solh is the Director General of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), also CGIAR-supported.

As desertification worsens, drastic declines in farm productivity happen, leading to great losses in related local livelihoods, deepening poverty further and worsening social and political instabilities.

The degraded lands also release carbon into the air, exacerbating climate change. Meanwhile, because of climate change, experts predict that more and wider droughts will occur.

During the conference, among other things, experts will discuss the need and agree on methods to standardize the monitoring system of assessing land degradation and measuring progress in combating it by modern science and technology. They have to agree on what they are looking for and how to look for it and measure it.

The UNCCD must now build a stronger technical basis for cost-effective actions to ward off desertification,' says ICRISAT scientist Mark Winslow. The Bueno Aires conference is bringing together high-tech approaches such as computer modeling, high resolution remote sensing' on one hand and 'government decision-making' on the other. In fact, a wide variety of such approaches are being developed and tested under the Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA) Project, which is being carried out in Argentina and five other developing countries by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Thus, while seeking better ways to monitor and assess land degradation, scientists also point to multiple avenues for enabling rural people to reverse the process through sustainable land management.

For instance, with ICRISAT researchers in the dry Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa, 100 landless women gain access to degraded farmland and restore it to productivity by harvesting rainwater, applying compost to improve soil fertility, and planting drought-tolerant crops. The women are showing the men how to be better farmers and care givers to the land.

In the eastern Rajasthan State in India, similar water-harvesting systems and structures, together with planting of hardy trees, has improved community lands in several watersheds. This has led to a 28% increase in per capita income.

ICARDA is helping to rehabilitate and revegetate thousands of hectares of heavily degraded rangelands throughout North Africa and Central and West Asia. ICARDA has pioneered the implementation of a laser guidance system to help build rainwater micro-catchments, which support fodders shrubs and stop erosion in marginal lands.

With the right combination of policies and global action, says Dar of ICRISAT, 'path-breaking science can help curb desertification and land degradation, improving the livelihoods of millions of poor people in drylands,' and at the same time help mitigate climate change.