Collective duty to fight land degradation: PM
WASHINGTON: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday reiterated the need for the world to come together to combat land degradation as a “collective responsibility” as it threatens the very foundations that societies and economies are built on, and called for more actions saying “a lot of work lies ahead of us”.
Delivering a keynote address at a high-level meeting at the United Nations on land degradation and drought, Modi went on to detail steps and measures India is taking to address the situations and helping other developing nations in the spirit of South-south Cooperation.
“It is mankind’s collective responsibility to reverse the damage to land caused by human activity,” the PM said during his virtual address in his capacity as president of the 14th Session of the Conference of Parties of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
If left unchecked, land degradation “will erode the very foundations of our societies, economies, food security, health, safety and quality of life,” he said, and added that the world must “reduce the tremendous pressure on land and its resources. Clearly, a lot of work lies ahead of us”.
The UN has estimated that onefifth of Earth’s land area – which is more than 2 billion hectares – is degraded, including more than half of all agricultural land. And 12 million hectares of land is lost to desertification, land degradation and drought each year. In all, nearly 95% of calories from food come from soil, yet topsoil erosion has accelerated tenfold due to human activity. The world loses 24 billion tons of fertile soil annually due to dry-land degradation, with significant negative impacts on food production and economic activity.
The high-level dialogue launched on Monday will assess progress made in this fight against land degradation and propose a way forward at the end of the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, and the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Modi reiterated Indian commitment to the cause linking it to the “importance [India gives] to land and [considers] the sacred earth as our mother”.
Modi said India has taken the lead to highlight land degradation issues at international forums, and pointed to the “Delhi Declaration” of 2019, which called for “better access and stewardship over land” and emphasised gender-sensitive transformative projects.
Over the last 10 years, India has added around three million hectares of forest cover, which, he said, enhanced the cumulative forest cover to almost one-fourth of the country’s total area. “We are on track to achieve our national commitment of land degradation neutrality.”
“We believe that restoration of land can start a cycle for good soil health, increased land productivity, food security and improved livelihoods,” the PM said, and spoke of “novel” efforts under way in the Banni region in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, which is marked by degraded land and lack of rain. India is restoring land there by developing grasslands.
Modi then turned to the assistance India is providing to others to deal with land degradation, which, he said, poses a special challenge to the developing world. “In the spirit of South-south Cooperation, India is assisting fellow developing countries to develop land restoration strategies,” he said. India is setting up a centre of excellence “to promote a scientific approach towards land degradation issues”, he added.