Water wastage in Iraq at 60 percent, says president

Rudaw – Water wastage in Iraq at 60 percent, says… | Rudaw.net

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid on Sunday said that the rate of water wastage in drought-ridden Iraq stands at around 60 percent, as the country continues to be among the most vulnerable to climate change. 

Rashid arrived in Erbil on Saturday to meet senior Kurdish officials and deliver a speech the following day at a conference in Erbil titled Drought and the Impact of “Climate Change on the Political, Economic, and Demographic Situation of Iraq,” attended by top Kurdish leaders such as President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. 

“The rate of water wastage in Iraq has reached nearly 60 percent,” Rashid said. “Water, as we all know, is the biggest natural resource for life and development, and climate change is one of the biggest issues that not only Iraq, but all other nations are facing.” 

Rashid, a former Iraqi water resources minister, criticized improper water management and the “usage of old systems for irrigation” as a primary factor behind the degree of water wastage in the country, lamenting that future generations are set to suffer if such issues are not tackled. 

Farmers in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region primarily rely on traditional methods of irrigation, either through manually watering the plants, or setting up a hose system across the farm connected to a water source.

He also criticized the former Baathist regime of dictator Saddam Hussein for “waging war after war” which significantly worsened Iraq’s climate issues. 

Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable to climate change, including water and food insecurity, according to the UN. It is facing a severe water shortage because of reduced precipitation, higher temperatures, and waste mismanagement.

Scorching temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius were recorded in Iraq in 2023, coupled with water scarcity, desertification, and reduced rainfall.

During his speech, President Barzani warned of the severity of the climate crisis in Iraq, saying that the issue has “adverse implications” across the country. 

“The ongoing effects of climate change have led to numerous threats, notably the escalation of desertification and the destruction of agricultural land. Data indicates that approximately hundreds of square kilometers of agricultural land in Iraq transforms into desert annually,” President Barzani said. 

He stressed that Baghdad and Erbil need to act quickly “to develop immediate and long-term strategies to address the risks posed by climate change, adapt to its consequences, and prevent disasters.” 

President Barzani also echoed Rashid’s remarks on the need to build dams in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to collect water. 

“The Kurdistan Region has abundant water resources. Special attention should be paid to dams and reservoirs both within the Kurdistan Region and across Iraq. It is important for the Iraqi federal government to support the Kurdistan Region in this area, as well as in initiatives for reforestation,” he said. 

An “urgent and prolonged” plan to control climate change is more necessary in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region than other countries, President Barzani stressed. 

Water shortage is one of the main challenges facing Iraq today. The World Resources Institute places it among 25 countries that face extreme water stress, meaning that it is using over 80 percent of its available supply of water and is at risk of running out of water in case of any short-term drought.

Droughts are more frequent and longer. Water reserves have decreased by half since 2022 due to a combination of drought, lack of rainfall, and declining river levels, according to the water ministry. The devastating effects of climate change are exacerbated by Turkish and Iranian dams upstream on shared rivers.

In February, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) approved the formation of an office within the environmental board to address issues relating to climate change. 

Last month, Baghdad signed a strategic water agreement with Ankara during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Iraq. Basem al-Awadi, spokesperson for the Iraqi government, told Rudaw at the time that the agreement would help resolve the water crisis in the country.

NAGGW Meets Stakeholders In Kano To Curb Land Degradation

Inner Mongolia ramping up green efforts

By Li Lei,Yuan Hui and Hou Liqiang | China Daily  – Inner Mongolia ramping up green efforts – Chinadaily.com.cn

Workers install photovoltaic panels as part of a desertification control project in the Kubuqi Desert in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region in July 2023. LIU LEI/XINHUA

In the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, people at the forefront of the fight against desertification have recently resorted to a new approach — combining sand control with wind and solar power projects to tame the once ever-expanding desert.

Sun Shaocheng, the region’s Party secretary, said that innovation is key to the success of the region’s broad green development initiatives, as Inner Mongolia aims to treat nearly 800,000 hectares of desert by 2030 using the new method.

Sun Shaocheng

In an interview with China Daily on Monday, Sun said the new approach was listed as a crucial regional project at a local Party conference late last year, and is considered a key move in winning the region’s sand control battle, which has national significance.

“The approach can achieve many benefits in one go,” he said.

Constructing an ecological barrier in northern China is a major task President Xi Jinping bestowed on the region since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, he said.

Inner Mongolia is a major battleground for advancing the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, an ecological project proposed by the Chinese government in the 1970s to improve the ecological environment in northern China and to prevent the expansion of desertification.

Sun said the regional government has issued a plan for integrating sand control and green energy production, with the aim of completing the treating of around 767,000 hectares of desert and achieving installed capacity of 119 million kilowatts of new energy by 2030.

Sun said the region has pledged to better coordinate the development of new energy projects with sand control and speed up the construction of centralized solar power plants and power cables in the “sand, gravel and desert” areas.

Authorities will also explore a model in which crops and animals can be raised among solar panels, which will result in a win-win situation of increasing greenery, energy and income, he said.

The target this year is to treat about 153,000 hectares of desert using this new method and increasing installed capacity of new energy by 27.27 million kilowatts.

Using all methods combined, the region aims to treat 1 million hectares of desert this year and 6.46 million hectares by 2030.

About 20 percent of the land in the region is affected by desertification and sand encroachment, though the region is considered to be among China’s ecologically diverse areas, with vast swaths of forestry and grassland.

Sun said the region will be responsible for the lion’s share of the construction volume of the Three-North program between 2021 and 2030.

“Inner Mongolia is the primary battleground for combating desertification and the front line defense against sandstorms,” he said.

“To maximize the benefits and ensure long-term effectiveness of desert control, we need to look beyond just treating the desert and focus on holistic management,” he said.

Inner Mongolia has innovated in recent years to combine sand control with food production as China works to bolster its food security.

Official data show that the region has created 9.13 million hectares of forests and 22.4 million hectares of grassland since 2012, and has treated 9.87 million hectares of desert.

THE GREAT GREEN WALL: AFRICA’S AMBITIOUS ATTEMPT TO FIGHT DESERTIFICATION

by: Lewin Day – The Great Green Wall: Africa’s Ambitious Attempt To Fight Desertification | Hackaday

As our climate changes, we fear that warmer temperatures and drier conditions could make life hard for us. In most locations, it’s a future concern that feels uncomfortably near, but for some locations, it’s already very real. Take the Sahara desert, for example, and the degraded landscapes to the south in the Sahel. These arid regions are so dry that they struggle to support life at all, and temperatures there are rising faster than almost anywhere else on the planet.

In the face of this escalating threat, one of the most visionary initiatives underway is the Great Green Wall of Africa. It’s a mega-sized project that aims to restore life to barren terrain.

A LIVING WALL

Concentrated efforts have helped bring dry lands back to life. Credit: WFP

Launched in 2007 by the African Union, the Great Green Wall was originally an attempt to halt the desert in its tracks. The Sahara Desert has long been expanding, and the Sahel region has been losing the battle against desertification. The Green Wall hopes to put a stop to this, while also improving food security in the area.

The concept of the wall is simple. The idea is to take degraded land and restore it to life, creating a green band across the breadth of Africa which would resist the spread of desertification to the south. Intended to span the continent from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, it was originally intended to be 15 kilometers wide and a full 7,775 kilometers long. The hope was to complete the wall by 2030.

The Great Green Wall concept moved past initial ideas around simply planting a literal wall of trees. It eventually morphed into a broader project to create a “mosaic” of green and productive landscapes that can support local communities in the region.

Reforestation is at the heart of the Great Green Wall. Millions of trees have been planted, with species chosen carefully to maximise success. Trees like Acacia, Baobab, and Moringa are commonly planted not only for their resilience in arid environments but also for their economic benefits. Acacia trees, for instance, produce gum arabic—a valuable ingredient in the food and pharmaceutical industries—while Moringa trees are celebrated for their nutritious leaves.

Choosing plants with economic value has a very important side effect that sustains the project. If random trees of little value were planted solely as an environmental measure, they probably wouldn’t last long. They could be harvested by the local community for firewood in short order, completely negating all the hard work done to plant them. Instead, by choosing species that have ongoing productive value, it gives the local community a reason to maintain and support the plants.

Special earthworks are also aiding in the fight to repair barren lands. In places like Mauritania, communities have been digging  half-moon divots into the ground. Water can easily run off or flow away on hard, compacted dirt. However, the half-moon structures trap water in the divots, and the raised border forms a protective barrier. These divots can then be used to plant various species where they will be sustained by the captured water. Do this enough times over a barren landscape, and with a little rain, formerly dead land can be brought back to life. It’s a traditional technique that is both cheap and effective at turning brown lands green again.

PROGRESS

The project has been an opportunity to plant economically valuable plants which have proven useful to local communities. Credit: WFP

The initiative plans to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, while also sequestering 250 million tons of carbon to help fight against climate change. Progress has been sizable, but at the same time, limited. As of mid-2023, the project had restored approximately 18 million hectares of formerly degraded land. That’s a lot of land by any measure. And yet, it’s less than a fifth of the total that the project hoped to achieve. The project has been frustrated by funding issues, delays, and the degraded security situation in some of the areas involved. Put together, this all bodes poorly for the project’s chances of reaching its goal by 2030, given 17 years have passed and we draw ever closer to 2030.

While the project may not have met its loftiest goals, that’s not to say it has all been in vain. The Great Green Wall need not be seen as an all or nothing proposition. Those 18 million hectares that have been reclaimed are not nothing, and one imagines the communities in these areas are enjoying the boons of their newly improved land.

In the driest parts of the world, good land can be hard to come by. While the Great Green Wall may not span the African continent yet, it’s still having an effect. It’s showing communities that with the right techniques, it’s possible to bring some barren zones from the brink, turning hem back into useful productive land. That, at least, is a good legacy, and if the projects full goals can be realized? All the better.

African Union launches strategy to combat desertification

Source: Xinhua – Editor: huaxia – African Union launches strategy to combat desertification-Xinhua (news.cn)

NAIROBI, May 7 (Xinhua) — The African Union (AU) on Tuesday launched a strategy to combat desertification on the continent for the next 10 years.

Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, commissioner for agriculture, rural development, blue economy and sustainable environment at the African Union Commission, said in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, that the new AU strategy of the Great Green Wall Initiative provides a mechanism for a harmonized and coordinated approach for multi-scale, collective action for restoring landscapes and building resilient communities in Africa’s dry lands.

“The strategy explores new funding avenues and incentives through land-based restoration value chains that will finance activities that prevent and reclaim degraded land,” Sacko said during the second Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit organized by the AU.

The three-day event brought together over 4,000 African participants, as well as scientists and international donors, to foster critical discussions on improving soil productivity on the continent.

Sacko added that the strategy covers 36 African countries and provides a roadmap to respond to the increasing threat of advancing desertification in Africa.

Estherine Lisinge-Fotabong, director of program innovation and planning at the African Union Development Agency, said that the strategy is aligned to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change as well as the United Nations Convention to Combat Climate Change.

Lisinge-Fotabong added that the strategy also prioritizes climate-smart agriculture and agroforestry in order to manage landscapes and fight desertification. 

Summit on Desertification and Drought at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Summit on Desertification and Drought at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences | UNCCD

Mongolia plants 42 mln trees since 2021 to combat desertification

Source: Xinhua – Editor: huaxia –Mongolia plants 42 mln trees since 2021 to combat desertification-Xinhua (news.cn)

ULAN BATOR, May 2 (Xinhua) — Mongolia has planted a total of 42 million trees across the country since the launch of its national tree-planting campaign in 2021, the country’s presidential press office said Thursday.

In addition, at least 63 million seedlings have so far been stocked, it said, urging the public to actively take part in the upcoming National Tree Planting Day.

The land-locked Asian country is expected to observe the country’s largest tree-planting and nature care event on May 11.

In October 2021, Mongolia launched the nationwide tree-planting campaign “Billion Trees” as the country’s President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh told the United Nations General Assembly that the campaign aims to plant at least a billion trees by 2030 to combat desertification.

Desertification related to climate change has been the main factor behind the increasing frequency of yellow dust storms in Mongolia in recent years, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism said.

Desertification and land degradation have already affected 77 percent of Mongolia’s total territory, and 11.89 percent of that is now covered by forests, according to the ministry.

See the $36 billion Great Green Wall in Africa that’s an attempt to hold back desertification

Jenny McGrath 

The Great Green Wall Aims to Regreen Africa’s Sahel Region (businessinsider.com)

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Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

• The Great Green Wall is a project to restore degraded land in nearly two dozen African countries.
• Deforestation, agricultural expansion, and drought have caused desertification across the continent.
• The $36-billion-plus project aims to generate 10 million jobs and sequester tons of carbon by 2030.

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Over the past several decades, deforestation, agricultural expansion, and drought have all contributed to desertification in parts of the African continent. Once-fertile soil has become drier and less productive.

More than a dozen African countries have been fighting this desertification with an ambitious project to grow trees and other vegetation on 247 million acres of degraded land, an area roughly 2.3 times the size of California.

The goals of the 17-year-old Great Green Wall project — estimated to cost between $36 to 49 billion — also include generating 10 million jobs and sequestering 250 million tons of carbon by 2030.

Countries from Senegal to Djibouti are trying to regreen the semiarid Sahel bioclimate, a band stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

The dangers of land degradation include soil erosion and lessened biodiversity.

Side-by-side images of the Ferlo region of Senegal in 1994 and 2011 show land degradation over nearly 20 years. G. Gray Tappan/US Geological Survey

West African forests once covered over 50,000 square miles. Since 1975, deforestation, mainly from agricultural expansion, reduced the size to about 32,000 square miles, according to the US Geological Survey.

In addition to making soil less fertile, desertification can make it more prone to wind erosion and less able to retain moisture. It also leads to a loss in biodiversity of plant and animal species. All of these factors make it more difficult for human populations to survive.

The Great Green Wall initiative launched in 2007 as a plan to plant trees across a large swath of the African continent.

The Sahel is a bioclimate stretching across the African continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Rainer Lesniewski/iStock/Getty Images

The African Union formally began the project in 2007. Originally, the GGW included 11 countries — Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. In the years since it started, a handful of others have joined as well.

At first, the plan was to fill a 10-mile-by-4,350-mile area of the Sahel with trees. Trees can help slow soil erosion, absorb carbon dioxide, and promote biodiversity by providing food and shelter for animals.

However, critics started pointing out flaws, and the project hit several speedbumps.

The GGW project hit some early snags.

Some trees planted as part of the GGW didn’t survive because they were located in uninhabited areas. Seydou Diallo/AFP via Getty Images

One big problem with the tree-planting plan was the trees themselves. Some saplings either grew poorly or died. They were planted in remote regions, which made them difficult to care for. Warmer temperatures and low rainfall also contributed to the problem.

Some communities thought their government hadn’t fully involved local and indigenous populations in their projects. Other governments had purposefully removed groups of people from their homes in forests and conservation areas, Corporate Knights reported.

The success of the GGW has also been difficult to monitor in some areas, according to Corporate Knights. External experts have had trouble independently verifying some governmental data, for example.

By 2020, the project was only 4% completed.

In 2021, world leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, pledged $19 billion as part of the Great Green Wall Accelerator to help measure and facilitate the project’s success.

By then, GGW’s focus had started to shift to a mix of projects that drew on traditional growing and irrigation methods.

Niger and Burkina Faso found success with different approaches outside the GGW project.

After droughts in the last century, farmers in parts of Niger started returning to traditional practices to keep soil fertile. Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Before the GGW project began, locals in parts of Niger and Burkina Faso started using a technique called farmer-managed natural regeneration, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

French colonial authorities had once encouraged farmers to remove trees on agricultural land, according to Yale Environment 360. Droughts in the 1980s prompted the shift back to earlier methods.

Instead of planting new trees, farmers in south-central Niger encouraged the growth of existing shrubs and trees. The practice has helped regreen 12 million acres and grown 2 million trees.

In Burkina Faso, farmers drew on traditional knowledge to adapt after droughts in the 1970s and 1980s. They dug deep pits called zai and assembled stone barriers to help capture and retain moisture.

One farmer, Yacouba Sawadogo, was so successful that a film was made about his work in 2010, called “The Man Who Stopped the Desert.”

The GGW isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.

A Tolou Keur circular garden in Boki Diawe, in Matam region, Senegal, part of the Great Green Wall. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Since the start of the GGW, many countries have seen success with farmer-led projects. In Senegal, farmers started planting zai gardens during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Known as Tolou Keur in Wolof, the country’s language, the half-moon pits hold and direct water toward plants.

While not all the Tolou Keur have survived, others are thriving. Farmers are growing everything from sorghum and millet to mint and hibiscus plants.

Part of their attraction lies in the fact that they’re quick to build, don’t take up a lot of space, and only need about 10 people to maintain them, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

The GGW is now a mosaic instead of a wall of trees.

The Sahel village of Ndiawagne Fall in Kebemer, Senegal is part of the Great Green Wall project, which originally focused on planting trees across the Sahel. Leo Correa/AP Photo

At this point, the Great Green Wall is a bit of a misnomer.

“We moved the vision of the Great Green Wall from one that was impractical to one that was practical,” Mohamed Bakarr, the lead environmental specialist for Global Environment Facility, told Smithsonian Magazine in 2016. “It is not necessarily a physical wall, but rather a mosaic of land use practices that ultimately will meet the expectations of a wall.”

The project incorporates technology like drones and satellite imagery.

Satellite imagess, like this one from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, can help track the progress of the GGW. European Space Agency

Drones and satellites recently started providing detailed information on restored land, using AI to identify the species of individual trees.

Tech startups and organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are collaborating to help Sahel communities map and track the populations of baobab trees, which can help reduce soil erosion.

Many countries have seen success regreening areas of the Sehal.

An expanse of trees outside the Walalde department in Senegal. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Ethiopia, Niger, and Senegal have all regreened parts of their land. In addition to its zai gardens, Senegal planted 50,000 acres of trees, according to National Geographic.

In 2023, the UN Development Programme reported that the GGW project was 18% completed, restoring over 49 million acres of land and creating 350,000 jobs.

But not all countries have seen the same amount of success.

With 2030 approaching, the GGW is facing setbacks.

Some countries like Sudan haven’t been able to make as much progress on GGW goals due to unrest and less funding. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Conflict and instability in some countries make meeting the GGW’s goals difficult as residents move to avoid fighting. More resources also seem to go to stabler countries, while Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Sudan receive less investment from donors, according to Nature.

Yet with the climate crisis and expanding population, the GGW’s mission remains as pressing as ever.

Anti-desertification with liquid nanoclay

Anti-desertification with liquid nanoclay – Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) (bie-paris.org)

Desertification, and specifically the loss of fertile arable land, is a phenomenon that poses a major threat to global food production, particularly in the developing world. About 12 million hectares of arable land is lost to erosion each year, and it is estimated that land degradation in the next 25 years has the potential to reduce global food production by up to 12% (UNCCD).

Understanding the severity of the issue, Expo 2020’s innovation and partnership programme Expo Live selected Desert Control as one of its Global Innovators for inventing liquid nanoclay (LNC).

This innovative solution is a mixture of water and nanoparticles of clay that can turn dry and sandy land into water-retaining arable soil. The mixture – made on site from natural materials – is applied to land in the same way as regular irrigation, making it an easy and accessible solution for farmers around the world.

Desert Control has tested LNC in China, Egypt, Pakistan and the UAE, with results showing 30-50% increase in water and fertiliser retention, reducing the need for irrigation and increasing yields. After validating the technology, the company is now scaling up, and has had a successful IPO launch on Euronext Growth Oslo Stock Exchange.

With the support of Expo Live, Desert Control’s mission of “making the Earth green again” seems to have a promising future with a global impact.

Iraq’s agriculture threatened by desertification, land degradation, climate change

The alarming statistics reveal that 71 percent of arable land in Iraq has already succumbed to desertification, while an additional 100,000 dunams of land become infertile annually due to this phenomenon – (kurdistan24.net)

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – Iraq faces a critical environmental crisis as desertification and land degradation continue to threaten agricultural viability, with only 14 million dunams of land remaining suitable for farming, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Environment.

The alarming statistics reveal that 71 percent of arable land in Iraq has already succumbed to desertification, while an additional 100,000 dunams of land become infertile annually due to this phenomenon.

Desertification not only jeopardizes Iraq’s agricultural productivity but also poses a significant threat to the environment and climate. The resultant dust storms not only degrade air quality but also endanger the health of Iraqis.

Iraq ranks among the top five countries most affected by climate change, with projections indicating a substantial increase in average temperatures by 2050. Additionally, UNESCO identifies Iraq as the 12th most impacted country by groundwater depletion, forecasting a loss of 20 percent of its groundwater by 2050.

The dire situation is further compounded by erosion, which threatens 61 percent of agricultural land, leading to a 70 percent reduction in Iraq’s agricultural output, according to the al-Baider Center for Studies and Planning, a non-governmental and non-profit organization located in Baghdad.

These environmental challenges have far-reaching consequences, including the proliferation of dust storms, particularly during the summer months, attributed to decreased rainfall and soil desertification.

A study conducted by Yale University, Columbia University, and the World Economic Forum underscores the severity of the issue, revealing that Iraqi dust carries 37 toxic substances and over 147 dangerous bacteria and fungi.

Despite the urgency of the situation, Iraq lags behind in preparedness and governmental planning to combat climate change challenges, ranking poorly in global assessments of climate resilience and mitigation efforts.

UNCCD Executive Secretary visit to Mauritania: A focus on desertification and cooperation

| UNCCD

Mr Ibrahim Thiaw, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), paid a three-day visit to Mauritania from 15 to 17 April. This strategic visit coincides with Mauritania’s current role as Chair of the African Union and sets the stage for the upcoming 16th Conference of the Parties (COP 16) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, later this year.

During his stay, Mr Thiaw  held high-level talks with the Mauritanian authorities, focusing on strengthening cooperation between Mauritania and the UNCCD. These discussions are particularly important as they come at a time when Mauritania is not only leading the African Union, but also facing serious environmental challenges that are at the forefront of the international sustainable development agenda.

Mauritania is facing severe environmental degradation, with 1.28 million of its total population of 4.3 million exposed to land degradation, covering 60 per cent of its total land area. The country has been severely affected by recurrent droughts since the late 1960s, making desertification control a national priority and a key concern of successive governments.  In 2021, Mauritania experienced the most severe drought in its history, resulting in 20 per cent of the population facing acute food insecurity. This  degradation has not only led to physical and economic impacts, but has also increased social vulnerability, particularly among low-income households and women who rely heavily on natural resources for their livelihoods.

“Mauritania is a country severely affected by desertification, and it is crucial to rethink the country’s development policies in the light of climate change. This includes adopting new and renewable energy sources, formulating more appropriate agricultural and fisheries policies, combating drought and implementing environmental programmes adapted to these arid conditions. The development of a tailor-made strategy is essential, with Mauritania charting its own course to address these complex issues”, said Ibrahim Thiaw.

Mauritania is one of 22 countries participating in the Great Green Wall initiative. This ambitious project aims to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million green jobs by 2030. Through this initiative, Mauritania is seeking both environmental and economic benefits, demonstrating its commitment to both local and global sustainability efforts

After ratifying the UNCCD in June 2001, Mauritania launched the National Action Plan to Combat Desertification (PAN-LCD), which takes an integrated, participatory approach. This plan has been instrumental in integrating poverty reduction into desertification control programmes, working with grassroots communities, local authorities and non-governmental organisations.

Saudi Arabia and UNEP launch World Environment Day campaigns to combat desertification and restore degraded lands

Riyadh, 28 April 2024 – World Environment Day (WED) 2024 host, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Nations Environment Programme, (UNEP) have launched campaigns to combat desertification, restore land and build drought resilience ahead of global WED celebrations on 5 June in the country’s capital Riyadh.   

”Now is the time to act on commitments to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation” said Elizabeth Mrema, Deputy Executive Director of UNEP, launching the global campaign at a Saudi Environment Week event in Riyadh. 

”We are the first generation to now fully understand the immense threats to the land – and might be the last one with a chance to reverse the course of destruction. Our priority now must be on restoring ecosystems – on replanting our forests, on rewetting our marshes, on reviving our soils,” she added. 

Both campaigns will champion leadership in restoring land and put the spotlight on the Kingdom’s commitments at home and across the region to combat climate change by regreening and rewilding huge swathes of arid and semi-arid lands. Saudi Arabia is leading the G20 Global Land Initiative launched during its G20 Presidency in 2020 and will also host the largest-ever UN conference on land and drought in Riyadh from 2-13 December 2024 – the 16th session of the Convention’s Conference of the Parties (COP16). 

In March 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This World Environment Day aims to support accelerated progress on these commitments, with Saudi Arabia’s campaign connecting with the theme of COP-16, ‘Our Land, Our Future’, and the ‘We are #GenerationRestoration’ slogan of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. 

Globally, countries have pledged to restore one billion hectares of land – an area larger than China – by protecting 30% of land and sea for nature and restoring 30% of the planet’s degraded ecosystems. Championing the 2030 Agenda of shifting the world onto a sustainable and resilient path and joining forces to protect people and planet, World Environment Day 2024 will contribute to building momentum for climate action by rallying support for vital ecosystems restoration work.  

World Environment Day, marked annually on 5 June, was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. Over the past five decades, it has grown to be one of the largest global platforms for environmental outreach, with tens of millions of people participating online and through in-person activities, events and actions around the world.