UN decades (Google / Biodiversity Policy and Practice)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://biodiversity-l.iisd.org/news/un-decades-on-biodiversity-and-desertification-launched-in-africa-and-south-america/

UN Decades on Biodiversity and Desertification Launched in Africa and South America

July 2011: The regional launch for Africa of the UN Decade on Biodiversity was celebrated at the offices of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in conjunction with observance of the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification. The African launch was preceded by the celebration of the UN Decade on Biodiversity in South America.

The Africa launch, held on 22 July 2011, was attended by more than 200 ambassadors, diplomats, and representatives of UN agencies and other international organizations, who gathered to celebrate biodiversity and join efforts to halt land degradation, demonstrating the synergy between the biodiversity and the land-degradation agendas.

The South America launch, held in Quito, Ecuador, on 15 July 2011, marked the beginning of celebrations of the Decade in South America.

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2003 – Arizona – Afforestation experiments with TerraCottem soil conditioner applied on fruit trees (Photo WVC)

2003 – Arizona – Creation of a small orchard close to the house (Photo WVC)

2003 – Arizona – Fruit tree plantation with TerraCottem soil conditioner (Photo WVC)

Halting net desertification by 2030 to help ease poverty and maintain food production (Google / Dawn / UNCCD)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/16/world-urged-to-stop-net-desertification-by-2030.html

World urged to stop net desertification by 2030

BONN: The world should set a goal of halting net desertification by 2030 to stem annual losses of farmland equivalent to three times the size of Switzerland, a senior UNofficial said on Tuesday.

“Drylands are on the front line of the climate change challenges for the world,” Luc Gnacadja, head of the Bonn-based UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), told the Reuters Global Energy and Climate Summit.

Drylands account for about 41 per cent of the world’s land area — ranging from deserts such as the Sahara to croplands in central Asia, the US plains or much of Australia. Many regions are becoming steadily more arid.

Gnacadja said the UNCCD hoped world leaders, due to meet in Rio de Janeiro in mid-2012 for a once-a-decade “Earth Summit”, would set a goal of halting net desertification by 2030 to help ease poverty and maintain food production.

“That means we will do more to prevent land degradation, we will do more to reclaim land,” he said. “If we do these two things…we can certainly reach the level of a zero net rate”.

Every year, he said 12 million hectares (29.65 million acres) of land were degraded in drylands — three times the size of Switzerland. Areas restored to productivity were far less, meaning a big annual net loss.

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UNDDD (Google / UN.org)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://www.un.org/en/events/desertification_decade/background.shtml

UNDDD

Background Information

Purpose

With more lands around the world facing increasing deterioration and degradation, the United Nations General Assembly declaredthe United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification, which runs from January 2010 to December 2020 to promote action that will protect the drylands. The Decade is an opportunity to make critical changes to secure the long-term ability of drylands to provide value for humanity’s well being.

The goals and objectives of the Decade flow directly from the General Assembly’s resolution A/RES/64/201. The motivation for this resolution was the Parties’ concern about the deteriorating situation of desertification in all regions, which has far-reaching implications for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability.

In this regard, the resolution mandates the pursuit of three objectives, which are:

• organizing activities to observe the Decade in order to raise awareness of (a) the causes of and (b) solutions to ongoing land degradation and desertification in the framework of the ten-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the implementation of the Convention (2008-2018);
• mobilizing financial and technical support to the Convention secretariat, to support special initiatives in observance of the Decade as well as other observance events and activities worldwide; and
• monitoring and reporting on progress in preparation of the Secretary General’s Report to the General Assembly at its 69th Session on the status of implementation of the resolution.

Origins of the Decade

Building on the successful celebration of the International Year of Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification (IYDD) in 2006, the United Nations General Assembly, by its resolution A/RES/62/195 of 2007, declared 2010 to 2020 the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification (UNDDD).

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UNDDD Success Stories – Brazil (UNDDD / UNCCD / IFAD)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

Brazil

Success_story_Brazil

Greening a grey land

Naelson Medeiros was born about 30 years ago in Sombras Grandes, a small community in the vast ‘grey land’ of the Caatigna forest in north-eastern Brazil. The forest gets its nickname from the monochrome colours of the landscape evident due to the annual nine-month drought when there is precious little green to be seen. Medeiros remembers the difficult times of living in this harsh landscape, when survival seemed almost impossible.

For families living in the community, firewood collected for charcoal production and temporary farming were the only sources of income. “Firewood was becoming scarce,” says Medeiros. “Stones were all we had, and you could see people breaking them to sell the gravel to building companies.”

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Contacts:
Rodney Cooke
Director
Technical Advisory Division
IFAD

Elwyn Grainger-Jones
Director
Environment and Climate Division
IFAD

© International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2010
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

UNDDD Success Stories – Turkey 2 (UNDDD / UNCCD / DRYNET)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

Turkey

Success Story Turkey

The Kop and Burnazdere Microcatchments in Bayburt region – Turkey

Hot and short summers that are followed by cold winters are not the best preconditions for a healthy vegetation. Thus, the location of Turkey’s smallest province, Bayburt, in such conditions pre-disposed it to being poor. Uninhibited deforestation coupled with the use of some bad traditional agricultural techniques exacerbated the situation, threatening the livelihoods of the inhabitants. The Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion, for Reforestation and the Protection of Natural Habitats, TEMA, with assistance from the European Union, set up projects in five villages to improve land productivity and reduce its heavy erosion.

Experts identified several problems and developed strategies for improvement. But a key challenge was how to involve the villagers because introducing ideas that would require villagers to give up traditional agricultural methods posed a serious risk to their already meager incomes. Therefore, sustainable alternatives had to prove their worth first through profitability. It was the first such positive results that persuaded the farmers and to support the project advance forward. The project activities were designed to increase the diversity of agricultural products, implement sustainable land management and stop soil erosion.

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© Drynet
Source: http://www.dry-net.org/index.php?page=3&successstoryId=4
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

UNDDD Success Stories Turkey 1 (UNDDD / UNCCD / DRYNET)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

Turkey

Success Story Saffron Turkey

Flowers to combat desertification and protect biological diversity in Turkey

For a long time, cotton dominated agricultural production in the Harran Plateau of Turkey, despite this crops accompanying environmental problems. Cotton requires frequent irrigation, but the village is in a semi-arid region where water is scarce.

Consequently, the intense irrigation needed to produce cotton also brought about increased soil salinity and loss of nutrients, which led to a downward spiral of decreasing cotton productivity.

The Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion and experts from Harran University devised a plan of action in which saffron production would become the key tool for combating erosion. The other objective was to restore and protect the saffron gene to this ancestral location.

After several soil tests, the Çütlük area belonging to Kuruyer village in the Plateau was chosen for the project. Its initiators had to convince the villagers to give up cotton in favor of the locally germinating saffron. Saffron had been cultivated here until it was displaced by the large cotton monocultures.

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© Drynet
Source: www.dry-net.org/index.php?page=3&successstoryId=24
The complete story is available at: http://www.dry-net.org/uploaded_files/Case2_EN.pdf
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

UNDDD Success Stories – India 2 (UNDDD / UNCCD / ICRISAT)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

India

Success Story watershed India

Adarsha Watershed in Kothapally Leads to Inward Migration Flows

One of the main obstacles to combating desertification and drought is the failure to provide local communities with the knowledge they need to improve their lives. The Adarsha Watershed Project in Kothapally village located in an arid area in Range Reddy district, India, shows how cooperation between scientists and local communities transforms lives.

Kathopally village is highly dependent on the monsoon to meet its annual water needs. So prior to 1999, the village women walked several kilometers to fetch water, particularly in the dry season when there is no Monsoon and, and consequently, no rainwater available even for their households.

In 1999, scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) decided to set up a project to work with farmers from the local community to change the situation. Their collaboration begun right from the beginning, which ensured that the villagers took all the decisions collectively, even on issues as mundane as the choice of the name of the project ‘Adarsha’, which means “an example worth to be followed.”

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ICRISAT, 2004.
Source: Sreedevi TK, Shiferaw B and Wani SP. 2004. “Adarsha watershed in Kothapally: understanding the drivers of higher impact.” Global Theme on Agroecosystems, Report no. 10.

Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics. 24 pp.
Web: www.iwmi.cgiar.org/assessment/files_new/publications/ICRISATRep10_scr.pdf
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

UNDDD Success Stories India 1 (UNDDD / UNCCD / UNEP)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

India

Success Story Forest India

A long road to sustainable community forestry

The National Joint Forest Management Project, Haryana Province, India

The foothills of Himalaya in Haryana State are called Siwalik Hills and were once covered by forest. But uncontrolled logging, fires and overgrazing led to erosion and decreased forest productivity. Being an open access resource, inhabitants of the two adjacent villages brought their large cattle herds, goats and sheep to graze inside the forest and cut trees without restriction. The soil sediment eroded by the rain from the now unprotected forest ground built up in the crossing rivers and also settled on the agricultural land, leaving behind infertile land.

The state forestry officials determined that the local communities needed some
incentives to protect the forest and take responsibility for its condition. So, they decided to increase water provision in order to enhance agricultural productivity and improve the household incomes of the villagers. This took the pressure from forest resources because the villagers became less dependent on the forest for their survival.

As a next step, they planned how to involve villagers in the forest’s management.

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© United Nations Environment Programme
Success Stories – In the struggle against desertification
http://www.unep.org/desertification/successstories/
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

UNDDD Success Stories – China (UNDDD / UNCCD / UNEP)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

China

Success Story Settlement China-1

Protecting Human Settlements from Drifting Sand in Cele County, China

The encroachment of deserts on homes, cities and farmland is a challenge faced by most people that reside close to deserts. An example is the Cele County area in the far west region of China, which is characterized by the arid climate of the Taklimakan Desert. People settled here because some of the seasonal rivers provide water to many of the region’s oases, making agriculture possible.

Thus, for the longest time, the people suffered the effects of desertification and
mobile dunes, and the situation has got worse as the human and animal populations have increased. Higher demands for firewood and fodder hastened the desertification process and threatened Cele town, which had moved three times already.

The regional government decided to take action and, in 1983, launched project
‘Experimental Research to Control Drifting Sand of Cele County’, implementing a Comprehensive Protecting System. The system forms a series of biological and physical barriers to the movement of sand dunes.

The first barrier is a channel that is followed by a strip of grass and shrubs, and a narrower line of taller shrubs. Then at the border of the agricultural area comes a zone of tall trees serving as a wind break. The community did most of the work in line with the traditional system of voluntary communal work.
In the end there were additional benefits from the Cele project.

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© United Nations Environment Programme,
Success Stories – In the struggle against desertification
http://www.unep.org/desertification/successstories/
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgement of source

UNDDD Success Stories : Syria (UNDDD / UNCCD / IFAD)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

Syria

Success_story_Syria

The grass is greener: rehabilitating the Syrian Badia

The Syrian steppe or ‘Badia’ covers 10 million hectares of central and eastern Syria. Characterized by poor soils and low rainfall, it is suitable only for grazing by small ruminants, equines and camels. The Bedouin communities herd about 12 million animals here. After years of severe drought and intensive grazing, the Badia has become badly degraded.

With support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the local communities have restored vegetation in about one third of the Badia rangelands– nearly 3 million hectares. The key to success was involving local people in decision- making and encouraging them to take full ownership of the rehabilitation and management of the rangelands.

Using their extensive local knowledge, the Bedouin herders worked with experts in the drafting and implementation of the management plans. They determined how many animals should graze in a given area at a given time, taking seasonal conditions into account. Various approaches were used, including films, meetings with communities, field days and workshops, to bring communities on board and communicate the new rangeland management techniques. Once communities had agreed to collaborate, they and the experts collectively established the boundaries and selected the sites suitable for rehabilitation.

(continued)

For more information contact International Fund for Agricultural Development
Contacts:
Rodney Cooke
Director
Technical Advisory Division
IFAD

Elwyn Grainger-Jones
Director
Environment and Climate Division
IFAD

© International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2010
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

UNDDD Success Stories : Ethiopia (UNDDD / UNCCD)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

Ethiopia

Voices _from_deserts.Ethiopia

Voices from the desert: living with desertification

Diramo lives in the village of Siminto in Ethiopia. She grew up as a herder, but now the abundant grasslands that fed the cattle are gone and the people are no longer able to migrate in search of pasture.

“During my childhood, the grass was the height of a person,” Diramo says. “Now, the shortage of water and grass has led to the emaciation of cattle; we have nowhere to go. Our life is tied to our cattle. When the cattle are fat, we get fat; when they are emaciated, we too lose weight.”

Chuqulisa from Ethiopia is divorced ….

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More stories from the Desert Voices project by Panos London, funded by an IFAD grant, can be found on the Panos website: www.panos.org.uk/?lid=435
Rodney Cooke
Director
Technical Advisory Division
IFAD

Elwyn Grainger-Jones
Director
Environment and Climate Division
IFAD
Tel: +39 06 54592151
IFAD/GECC Registry: GECCregistry@ifad.org
© International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2010
Material may be used and cited with acknowledgment of source

Collective and Family Woodlands in Tiogo Forest Reserve Improve Incomes and Land (UNDDD / UNCCD / UNEP / UNDP)

Read at : SUCCESS STORIES

http://unddd.unccd.int/success-stories.htm

BURKINA FASO

Success_story_Burkinafaso

For more than 20 years, UNEP has been actively involved in worldwide efforts to combat dryland degradation. The following success story addresses not only the biophysical but also the socio-cultural-economic issues in all its developmental stages, thus ensuring long-term sustainability. It was implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and local communities with funds from SIDA.

Reference
Re-written from, United Nations Environment Programme, Collective and Family Woodlands in Tiogo Forest Reserve, Mossi Plateau in Burkina Faso
Available at: http://www.unep.org/desertification/successstories/3.htm