|
World
Mission Home
From
the Editor
Where
to find WMM
Subscription
Rates
World
Mission Archives
Contact
World
Mission
FORUM
Back to Contents
|
Desertification Land Impoverishment
&np
The United Nations has declared 2006 as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. The phenomenon, which affects more than one billion human beings, is "one of the most striking forms of environment degradation." Moreover, it is also a poverty factor.
The term "desertification" was first used at the end of the 1940s to characterize areas which were becoming like deserts. There has been a long time discussion on whether that would be the result of natural processes alone or also of human action. This discussion is far from being mere academic talk, since it can influence politics that affects all the inhabitants of the Earth Planet.
The understanding of the concept "desertification" was finally agreed upon during the Rio de Janeiro Conference in 1992 and today′s United Nations′ definition considers the two essential causes of the phenomenon: desertification is "the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas into desert, resulting from various factors, including climate variations, and human activities."
Nowadays, it is estimated that 1000 million people – about one sixth of the world population – are being threatened by desertification in the whole planet. The Earth, moreover, runs the risk of having 41 per cent of its land being transformed into desert.
Desertification occurs mainly in dry lands, where the soil is particularly poor, the water precipitation low or non-existent, and the climate severe. Statistics reveals that about 3,600 of the 5,200 million hectares of arid land being used for agricultural purposes have been suffering erosion and soil degradation, forcing people to immigrate to the cities in search of better livelihood conditions. This movement of people brings about an inevitable impact on humanity and economy.
Desertification processes originate from climate changes. But, often, the major cause of desertification is human activity: excessive sowing dries up the soil, deforestation eliminates trees that hold the soil, and uncontrolled grazing by animals deprives lands of their natural vegetation.
Desertification, at the same time, creates conditions that can lead to ignition of fires and strong winds: dust from desert storms reaches Europe and even the United States; and, lately, people from Cape Verde have gotten used to seeing their archipelago hit by sand from the Sahara Desert.
More famine and more poverty
The desertification effects are well known: loss of vegetation, erosion provoked by winds and rivers, soil impoverishment, diminishing agricultural and alimentary production, biodiversity loss, climate-related catastrophes, as well as health threats provoked by dust movements, ecological refugees, loss of revenues and even the rupture of social structures.
Soil impoverishment causes loss of fertility which, in some cases, can reach 50 per cent. This aggravates alimentary insecurity, famine and poverty – and in turn generates social, economic and political tensions. According to recent statistics, out of the 1000 million human beings affected by desertification, 135 million may be forced to abandon their lands in search of new livelihood sources.
Contrary to what may be thought, desertification is not only a problem for countries in the South. Even if it were true, the effects go well beyond their borders. It is believed that 100 million tons of dust from African deserts are transported yearly by the winds through the Atlantic Ocean to the West, with ill effects on the health of those who inhale them.
Recently, the director of the Economics Department of a Madrid University, Carlos San Juan, affirmed that the Sahara Desert has "crossed over" Gibraltar Strait and is provoking increased desertification in parts of Spain, Portugal and Italy. In the near future, he continued, it may affect Greece and other Mediterranean areas.
A more compensated deforestation
In a recent document, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations drew attention to the continuing deforestation at an alarming scale – 13 million hectares of forest disappear every year – even though the actual loss of forest areas is diminishing due to new plantations and expansion of existing forests.
Between 2000 and 2005, the forest net loss was 7.3 million hectares yearly, less than the 8.9 million hectares that disappeared between 1990 and 2000. That means 0.18 per cent of the world forests disappear every year.
In a study entitled "Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005," done between 1990 and 2005 in 229 countries and territories, FAO concluded that forests nowadays cover 4000 million hectares (30 per cent) of the earth surface. Ten countries alone have the two- thirds (2/3) of that area: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, United States, Russian Federation, India, Indonesia, Peru and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Many analysts said Beijing does not concern itself with how the money it gives to African states is used, allowing corrupt governments to siphon off sums received, while western states would often expect to know how the money is spent.
South America was the region that lost the greater forest area in the last five years: about 4.3 million hectares per year. In the second place was the African continent, which lost 4.0 million hectares yearly. In Europe, forest areas have continued to expand, although at a lower rate than in the decade of the 1990s while, in Asia, there was a change from the yearly loss of 800 thousand hectares in the 1990s to a gain of one million hectares per year between 2000 and 2005, due mainly to the reforestation effort done in China, where the desert areas represented almost 30 per cent of the whole area of the country only a few years back.
According to the same study, new trees and forests are being planted at an ever increasing rate but, even so, the plantations do not represent more than five per cent of the whole forest area of the Earth Planet.
FAO has sent the conclusions of that study to national governments and specialists on evaluating natural resources because they can "support decision-making for policies, programmes and outlook studies in forestry and sustainable development at all levels – local, national and international," affirmed Ms. Mette Loyche Wilkie, the coordinator of the study.
At the recent United Nations Conference on Climate Changes held in Montreal, FAO underlined that deforestation represents the sending of 2000 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere – that is one fourth of the total emissions of that gas – which is one of those that produce the greenhouse effect, and offered help to give countries data and options of economic investments to reduce the loss of forests in developing countries.
FAO has been playing a very important role in the implementation of the "United Nations Convention to Fight Against Desertification in Countries Seriously Affected by Drought and/or Desertification, especially in Africa" approved in 1994 and put into action in December 1996. FAO′s projects in the said areas are specifically on the control of erosion, improvement of water supply, administration of forests and pastures, food security and rural development.
Astronomic losses
In the message delivered on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification last June, the United Nations Secretary–General Kofi Annan classified desertification as "one of the most striking forms of environment degradation." Besides threatening the health and resource means of a considerable part of humanity, it causes, together with droughts, "losses in agricultural production of $42 billion a year."
It was in this context that the United Nations decided to proclaim 2006 the International Year of Deserts and Desertification – to give more visibility to this issue in the realm of the environmental agenda.
All countries and civil society organizations have been encouraged to foster initiatives to mark this International Year. Among those already programmed are the Conferences on "Youth and Desertification" to be held in Bamako (Mali), on "Women and Desertification"
(Beijing), on "Desertification and Emigration" (Almeria, Spain), and on "Poverty, Famine and Desertification" (Geneva). To conclude this International Year, Algeria will be the host country of the Summit of the Heads of States on "Desertification, Migration and Security."
<WM
Niger
An African example
Niger has just launched a national plan to combat desertification in order to slow down the expansion of deserts and to improve production in soils impoverished by desertification.
This plan was brought about by the success of a pilot project launched some years ago at Bougoum, in Niamey metropolitan area, the country′s capital. The project utilized several methods to prevent water from flowing fast through the lands or towards the river. Some traditional ways were also used: for example, farmers buried manure at 15 – 20 cm depth to fertilize impoverished lands.
It was through this plan that about 3000 hectares of land could again be used for agriculture in 2002. The encouraging results made the authorities extend the plan to the whole country, of which between three quarters and two thirds are desert.
Some years ago, Niger launched a Tree Festival in the month of August, during which the inhabitants were invited to plant trees. However, this project did not bring the desirable results because of lack of supervision. Many trees were lost because of deficient protection. Planted far away from the houses of the farmers, the trees were left at the mercy of the starving cattle.
Philippines
The plunder of the forest
Loss of forest cover was a major factor in the tragic 2004 landslides that resulted in more than one thousand dead. This is just one more sign that the Philippines needs a massive reforestation and a strict regulation on logging.
In November 2004, the provinces of Quezon and Aurora experienced severe flooding and landslides that resulted in more than one thousand dead, and hundreds more injured or missing. The loss of forest cover was seen as a major contributory factor to the disaster. It was the worst to hit the country since November 1991 when thousands were killed in Ormoc City (Leyte). The government quickly identified illegal loggers as the culprits and initiated a campaign to go after them. It also ordered a nationwide ban, which was later lifted in two critical areas (Regions 11 and CARAGA) just a few months after it was implemented, due to the pressure exerted by local furniture makers and exporters.
Certainly, illegal logging seriously contributes to the country′s deforestation. But the campaign against illegal loggers obscures the role of flawed government policies in the loss of the country′s precious forest resources. They have suffered from centuries of massive exploitation under Spanish and American colonial masters in collaboration with the local elite. Thus, the decline of the county′s forestland area has already reached critical levels. The latest available data from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) shows that, in 2003, forest cover has declined to 7.2 million hectares or 24% of the county′s total land area of 30 million hectares.
However, this was an increase of 11% from the last reported (1998) figure of 6.5 million hectares. The increase in forest cover was attributed by the government to the slowdown in commercial timber harvesting due to the imposition of logging moratoriums in several provinces, log and lumber export bans and the implementation of reforestation programs. Private tree plantations, particularly in areas such as Mindanao, may also have been counted as contributing to increase in forest cover.
But the performance of reforestation has also been steadily declining – meaning that, whatever gains have been made may not be sustainable in the long run unless a massive reforestation program is implemented and logging in the country is strictly regulated. The poor state of the country′s timber resources is further reflected in the decline of the timber industry in the Philippines. Production of processed wood products has declined over the years. From an average annual growth rate of 2.4% from 1977–1980, production has consistently recorded negative growth rates. Despite this, exports as a share of production remains relatively high. This should not be surprising since logging in the country has traditionally been for export.
The focus on commercial concerns rather than resource preservation ensures that opposition to logging activities by indigenous peoples and local communities is ignored by logging companies with Industrial Forest Management Agreements (IFMA). Thus, the requirement for IFMA holders to conduct consultations with upland communities and other stakeholders within the concession area about the socio–economic, political and cultural impacts of their projects goes unfulfilled.
In fact, the first time many stakeholders learn there is an IFMA in their area is when company employees begin preliminary activities such as clearing trees, widening roads, and uprooting residents′ crops in preparation for tree planting. This naturally results in conflict between stakeholders, who oppose encroachment on their land, and logging companies. A consequence of stakeholders′ struggle against logging activities is greater military presence, as the army enters IFMA areas to protect the "rights" of logging companies. This results in increased cases of human rights violations.
Given the rapid loss of the country′s forest, and the near-annual disasters the loss of forest cover brings, it is clear that the government should take steps to correct the situation. Instead, the government is drafting an omnibus forestry policy to harmonize existing policies, not to make implementation easier, but to attract more foreign investors to the sector. What is needed, however, is for the government to draft a policy that would protect this vital resource before it is totally lost.
<Source: IBON-Facts & Figures, vol. 28, no. 12
The green gold
The increase or decrease of forest areas affects the ecological balance of the Earth Planet and all humanity. Let′s see how:
The plunder of the forest
– Forests are home to 300 million people around the world and more than 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood. Wood energy accounts for 7 to 9 percent of energy consumed worldwide. More than 2 billion people depend on wood fuel for cooking, heating and food preservation.
– Around 348 million hectares of forests are used to conserve soil and water, control avalanches and desertification, stabilize sand dunes and protect coastal areas.
– The decrease of forest area is primarily due to deforestation (mainly the conversion of forests to agricultural land) or natural disasters that make the land incapable of regenerating on its own.
– Forests have multiple functions, including conservation of biological diversity, soil and water, supplying wood and non-wood products, providing recreation opportunities and serving as carbon sinks. Forests provide habitats to about two-thirds of all species on earth.
– Forests are particularly important as carbon sinks: the amount of carbon stored in forest biomass alone is about 283 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon, though it decreased globally by 1.1 Gt annually between 1990 and 2005. Carbon stored in forest biomass, deadwood, litter and soil together is roughly 50 percent more than the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
– While most forests are managed for multiple uses, 11 percent are designated principally for the conservation of biological diversity – and such areas have increased by an estimated 96 million hectares since 1990. More than 8,000 tree species – 10 percent of the world′s total – are threatened with extinction.
– One-third of the world′s forests are mainly used for production of wood, fiber and non-wood products, and more than half have production of these products as one of their management objectives, indicating the importance of forest products at the local, national and international levels.
– The global annual trade in forest products is worth some $270 billion. Losses due to illegal cutting of forests are estimated at $10 billion.
– Primary forests – that is forests with no visible signs of past or present human activities – account for 36 percent of total forest area, but are being lost or modified at a rate of 6 million hectares a year through deforestation or selective logging.
– Russia has the largest area under forests – 850 million hectares (2.1 billion acres) – taking up just over half the country′s land area. Tropical forests account for more than half of the world's forest area and boreal⁄polar forests, one quarter.
<Sources: The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 (in: www.fao.org/forestry/fra2005); Food and Agriculture Organization (www.fao.org); World Bank (www.worldbank.org); Global Trees Campaign (www.globaltrees.org).
Copyright © 2003-2006
World Mission Magazine |
|
