Desertification and Land Degradation

In one line

The third Rio convention was negotiated after Rio at the insistence of the African States, it is about land rather than about a species or a gas, and it is the one an Indian student is least likely to have met.

In exam wording: the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, was adopted at Paris on 17 June 1994 and entered into force on 26 December 1996; article 1 defines desertification as land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities, and article 2 states the objective of combating desertification and mitigating the effects of drought through effective action at all levels supported by international cooperation and partnership arrangements, in the framework of an integrated approach consistent with Agenda 21, with a view to contributing to the achievement of sustainable development in affected areas.

Article 1: the definitions

Desertification means land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities.

Two things follow from that definition and both are examinable.

1. It is not the advance of a desert. It is degradation of land in dry areas, which may occur far from any desert.
2. It excludes hyper-arid areas. A true desert is not degraded land; it is a natural ecosystem.

Land degradation means reduction or loss, in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of rainfed cropland, irrigated cropland, or range, pasture, forest and woodlands, resulting from land uses or from a process or combination of processes arising from human activities and habitation patterns, such as soil erosion caused by wind or water, deterioration of the physical, chemical and biological or economic properties of soil, and long-term loss of natural vegetation.

Combating desertification includes activities that are part of the integrated development of land in the affected areas for sustainable development and that are aimed at prevention or reduction of land degradation, rehabilitation of partly degraded land, and reclamation of desertified land.

Drought means the naturally occurring phenomenon that exists when precipitation has been significantly below normal recorded levels, causing serious hydrological imbalances that adversely affect land resource production systems.

Affected countries means countries whose lands include, in whole or in part, affected areas.

Article 3: the principles

Four, and they are unusual in this subject because two of them are about participation.

• (a) The Parties should ensure that decisions on the design and implementation of programmes are taken with the participation of populations and local communities, and that an enabling environment is created at higher levels to facilitate action at national and local levels.
• (b) The Parties should, in a spirit of international solidarity and partnership, improve cooperation and coordination at subregional, regional and international levels, and better focus financial, human, organisational and technical resources where they are needed.
• (c) The Parties should develop, in a spirit of partnership, cooperation among all levels of government, communities, non-governmental organisations and landholders to establish a better understanding of the nature and value of land and scarce water resources in affected areas and to work towards their sustainable use.
• (d) The Parties should take into full consideration the special needs and circumstances of affected developing country Parties, particularly the least developed among them.