Earth's degraded land at 'breaking point', warns UN expert

Thiaw speaks about the crisis of deteriorating land quality, and how it is inextricably linked to climate change and biodiversity

Decades of unsustainable agriculture have depleted soils worldwide and accelerated both global warming and species loss, according to the UN official spearheading efforts to reverse land degradation.

Ibrahim Thiaw is the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), whose 197 parties -- 196 countries plus the European Union -- meet next month for the first time in three years, in Abidjan.

Also Read | A south-centric approach to internationalism

Thiaw spoke to AFP about the crisis of deteriorating land quality, and how it is inextricably linked to climate change and biodiversity. The interview has been edited for length:

Q. International efforts to combat desertification have been going on for three decades but have had far less attention than climate change and biodiversity. Are they less important?

"No. Human beings live on land, but we also live off the land. We cannot take it for granted -- land is a finite resource that must be managed, not just exploited and mined. We have already reached a breaking point: there is no longer a balance between our needs and the capacity of the land to regenerate and produce."

Q. What are the key issues?

"Two are especially critical. Droughts are hitting harder and in more regions. No country is immune -- look at the western United States. But when they hit communities that are vulnerable, it's a major disaster. We see it now in the Horn of Africa, or last year in Madagascar. Droughts have always existed, but with climate change, they are becoming more frequent and more severe."

Also Read | Climate change putting 4% of global GDP at risk, new study estimates

"The other critical issue is sustainable land management. If drought is a problem, land restoration is a solution. When you invest in land, you build resilience in your communities and create opportunities to make land that would have otherwise been wasted or lost productive again.

"Restoring land is also fighting against poverty and irregular immigration. Many studies have established the link between land degradation and migration -- in Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sahel and elsewhere. When people have no options they flee, whether to the next country or further afield."

Q. How does land degradation and restoration intersect with climate change and biodiversity?

"Land emits carbon when degraded. Restoring land to its natural state can help put that carbon back where it belongs. In Africa -- which emits only four per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions -- repairing the soil is one of the best options for mitigating emissions. The continent is not overpopulated but 65 per cent of land has been degraded in 70 years.

Also Read | Global warming: Even cacti can't take the heat

"Biodiversity is more obvious: when you degrade land, you degrade ecosystems and destroy habitats. The reverse is also true.

"Land, water, climate, biodiversity -- they are all thoroughly interconnected."

Q. The latest Global Land Outlook report calls for $1.6 trillion in investment for land restoration over the next eight years. Looking at how hard it has been to mobilise finance for climate action, is that a realistic goal?

"For climate, we are talking about 100 billion dollars of mostly public money that should flow from developed to developing countries. Here we are talking about the private sector, which has an interest in conserving the soil because it is the foundation of their business.

"Then there are the harmful subsidies driving land degradation. If we repurpose just one-fifth of these subsidies to actually restore and protect land, we could fight against climate change and biodiversity loss at the same time."

Q. What are those perverse subsidies?

"Some countries subsidise chemicals that are being put into land. Irrational irrigation subsidies can lead to depleted water tables, such as in the Middle East and the Sahara. Removing such subsidies won't do any significant harm to small consumers, but it may reduce the profit of the big companies in the short-term."

Q. What would you like to see as an outcome from the meeting next month?

"We cannot just keep lamenting about people dying of hunger or keep continuing to distribute food aid when more durable solutions are possible. We do have technologies for early warning systems, and insurance systems to help mitigate impacts.

"We must invest also in land restoration. It makes sense from every point of view -- economic, business, socially, environmentally. We expect this COP to make a major call to decision makers to rethink our systems.

"How many millions more of hectares of forest are we going to destroy? For how much longer are we going to waste a third of the food we produce? How much longer are you going to produce animal feed when you have people dying of hunger?

"This is the generation that must turn the page and turn the tide. We are destroying the planet in one generation, and we don't have three generations to fix it."

Check out DH's latest videos: