According to a UN report, humanity has modified 70% of the Earth’s land and put the planet on a “scaffolding of crisis”.
Damage to the Earth’s land, primarily caused by the expansion of agriculture, has put the Earth on a “scaffolding of crisis”, and urgently restore billions of acres of terrain to prevent the worst effects. The author of a radical new report that demands says climate change.
The report published on Wednesday Second major report A lesser-known UN group urging countries, governments and industries around the world to protect and rehabilitate devastated lands and ecosystems from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
“Our health, economy and well-being depend on land. Our food, water and breathing air all come from land, at least in part,” said Ibrahim, UNCCD Secretary-General.・ Chiau said on the phone with the reporters. “Humanity has already changed 70 percent of the land. This is the main, main person.”
Written by land use and ecosystem experts across 21 organizations, the report states that up to 40% of the planet’s land has already deteriorated, affecting half of the people living today. We have reached some cool conclusions.
According to the author, landscapes, and along with them, soil, water and biodiversity support society and the economy, and about half of the world’s economic production depends on these natural resources, but the government makes them appropriate. Explained to and not protected. They report that landscape restoration is important for the survival of society and the economy.
At current rates, additional areas about the same size as South America will deteriorate by 2050, and forests, savanna, wetlands and mangroves will be converted to agriculture or lost due to urban expansion, resulting in the current annual greenhouse effect. Approximately 17% of gas emissions are released.
This report arrives a few weeks before UNCCD is scheduled to meet in Cote d’Ivoire for the Annual Conference of the Parties (COP). However, the conference has received less attention than other UN treaties gathering this year to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.
“UNCCD is a practice that most people haven’t heard of. To be honest, Nigel Sizer, a land use and policy expert at Dalberg Catalyst, a non-profit organization working on sustainability projects, said.” They are struggling to pay attention to these very important issues, in order to prioritize support to major donor governments and prioritize these issues to countries in the southern part of the world. “
“A good way to do that is to create a report with really good data and have the UN agency speak out more than usual,” Sizar added.
UNCCD claims that the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and land degradation are all linked together.
“These treaties are being negotiated at the same time for reasons,” Chau said. “”They are three puzzle pieces. This is the same as the words in the report. “We cannot stop today’s climate crisis, tomorrow’s biodiversity loss, and the next day’s land degradation. All of these issues need to be addressed together.”
Land degradation can occur in many ways. These include deforestation, desertification, and the loss of wetlands and grasslands, all of which can be caused by human activity. Similarly, recovery can take many forms, including planting forests and shrubs, grazing livestock, and growing crops among trees.
“Restoration has different meanings depending on location and ecosystem,” said Sean Dewitt, director of the World Resources Institute’s Global Restoration Initiative. “These increase productivity and It’s a more regenerative system that can store more carbon and provide more habitat for animals. These are virtuous circles. “
The report puts much of the responsibility for the devastated landscape on the need for humanity’s ever-expanding food and the modern agricultural system that produces it. The world’s food system is involved in 80% of the world’s deforestation and 70% of the use of freshwater, and is the largest contributor to the loss of biodiversity on land, the authors say. Modern agriculture “has changed the face of the planet more than any other human activity,” they write.
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The authors say that the industrial agricultural revolution of the last century, which resulted in higher yields and abundant crops, relied on fertilizers that were brought at the expense of healthy soil and produced higher levels of emissions. I am.
“I was impressed with the very clear message that large-scale industrial agriculture and commercial-scale land conversion and clearing are very large parts of the problem,” Sizar said.
The report emphasizes that land can be restored despite current trends, claiming that by 2050 a total of 5 billion hectares (a total of five times the area of China) can be restored. .. It involves avoiding heavy cultivation, integrating trees with crops and livestock, and repairing grasslands and forests. Consumers also have a role to play by shifting from resource-intensive livestock-based diets that cause higher carbon emissions, the authors argue.
Transforming the food system “makes a significant contribution to the success of the world’s land, biodiversity and climate agenda,” they write.
The author argues that many of these modifications are low-tech and accessible and do not necessarily require huge capital. They estimate that it will cost $ 300 billion annually to achieve “significant” land restoration by 2030, which is far less than the subsidies provided to farmers in developed countries.
“It is possible to do this without the additional taxpayer’s money,” Thiaw said.
Already, countries have promised to restore 1 billion hectares (land about the size of the United States). Much of this is due to the UNCCD efforts and the Bon Challenge, an initiative initiated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2011 to restore 350 million hectares of land by 2030. So far, 61 countries have signed.
“This is just a starting point, as these are just political commitments,” DeWitt said. “To the extent that they led to a deeper government commitment, it changes. There were some front runners, then waiting for others to see, and there wasn’t a lot of traction.”
“It’s definitely climate related,” DeWitt added. “The question is whether we can reach 350 million. There must be changes in the ocean. We are still crazy deteriorating. Recovery must be for you to atone for your sins. It must be, but you must first stop sinning. “
Reporter, Washington DC
Georgina Gustin has covered agriculture in Inside Climate News, reporting on the crossroads of agriculture, the food system and the environment in many of her journalism careers. Her work has won numerous awards, including John B. Oaks’ prestigious Environmental Journalism Awards and Glenn Cunningham Agricultural Journalist of the Year, which he shared with his colleagues at Inside Climate News. She works as a reporter for Day, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and CQ Roll Call in New London, Connecticut, and her stories have been published on the New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic Plates, and more. She is a graduate of the University of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
https://ift.tt/9LfRJez According to a UN report, humanity has modified 70% of the Earth’s land and put the planet on a “scaffolding of crisis”.
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