Mending degraded lands to promote the world peace and security

During the 6th World Park Congress in Australia Monday, Madam Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary of UNCCD Secretariat, and Mr. Wang Wenbiao, the Chinese role model for desertification combating and COP 11 award-winner of “World Dry Land Champion” jointly release the initiative of “Mending degraded Land to Promote World Peace and Security”. It calls for an effective union to be set up by governments, international organizations, private enterprises, entrepreneurs, NGOs and the society, enhancing partnership for cooperation and dedicating to the global desertification combating for better eco-environment, alleviated poverty, world peace and security.

Mending degraded lands to promote the world peace and security

By Monique Barbut* and Wang Wenbiao**

We all seek peace and prosperity. The technology-dependent Millennial generation is setting a new trend in pursuing these goals. Youth consumption is driving economic growth in many developing countries and a large number of youth and children are becoming millionaires. But a large number of the Millennial is also pursuing peace and prosperity through a war economy, mostly out of desperation, not by design.

A vast majority of the rural youth in developing countries is poor and depends on land resources to create wealth. But as climate change takes a toll on degrading lands that are declining productivity, many young people are finding it more and more difficult to make a decent living. Disillusioned and unemployed, many are making the difficult choice of either fleeing their homes or joining a conflict economy that is offering pay for criminal or other extremist activities.

These challenges may be in distant lands like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria or Yemen. But they still eat into our own pursuit of peace and prosperity. The humanitarian and military interventions taken to contain the insecurity, political instability, forced migration and the like, come at a high price. Yet, China, Ethiopia and Niger are innovating investment approaches on improving land deterioration that these and other poor developing countries with vast degrading lands can use to turn around people’s livelihoods and their economies.

Today, more than 1.5 billion people many of them poor, eke out a living from barren soils or desert areas. Poverty in this population group can be eliminated within a relatively short time. By restoring only 600,000 hectares of land in the Loess Plateau, for instance, China lifted 2.5 million poor people out of poverty. Household incomes climbed from an average US$70 to US$200. Grain production increased from 365 kg to 591 kg per person per year, on average. And all in less than two decades – about the same duration as the Millennium Development Goals.

There is a large amount of degrading land around the world. More than 2 billion hectares of land is degraded, and can be restored. About 500 million hectares of crop land is lying waste – abandoned completely. The actual, total project cost of restoring the Loess Plateau was US$491 million; an investment of about US$820 per hectare. At this cost, we can rehabilitate all the abandoned cropland at a cost of US$410 billion.

This is no small investment, and yet not so large in the grand scheme of things as compared to other expenditures. For instance, Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates that the United States spent more than US$77.4 billion on the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, between 2003 and 2011.Investing in combating land degradation, the global benefits could be far greater.

The per-hectare cost of restoring degrading land varies across regions and countries. In Mali, for instance, it ranges between US$100 and $200, but is as low as US$25-$60 in some parts of Niger. Thus, rehabilitating all 93 million hectares of the land degraded in Mali is still a hefty bill, at US$9.3 billion. However, an investment of US$2.5 billion dollars could restore about 24 million hectares of land, just about doubling the amount of arable land in Mali, which is estimated at 30 million hectares. This price tag is the minimum cost the international community has paid to keep Mali stable, since January 2013, when foreign forces were deployed into the country. Estimates suggest that at least US$4.1 million is spent on Mali everyday.

Countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia or South Sudan are desperately poor and steeped in conflict and extremist activities. And while they may be much smaller than Mali in size, they are heavily degraded so the cost of restoring land here may be higher.

But it is hard to ignore even small achievements such as those of the Conservation Organization for Afghan Mountains Areas (COAM), which reveal the potential for land restoration to stamp out conflict in areas where extremists are preying on the vulnerability of the poor. It is difficult to ignore that businesses are making profitable land uses and conserving the environment. It is harder still to ignore the lives lost and money spent every year on security threats in areas where poverty and land degradation abound.

The question is no longer whether we can do it. Rather, it is whether there is political will among governments to create an environment that can enable all actors – governmental, private sector and non-governmental – to channel the investments needed to mend degrading land. Job creation is only one of the many potential benefits.

By recovering degrading land, we can reduce the number of people who, day-after-day, sleep hungry. We can increase the land available to produce food and animal feed, and ease the growing pressures to grab land. We can restore watersheds that have been degrading for so long, as they are costing us lives and money due to unprecedented flood or drought disasters. And because carbon is needed for fixing degraded lands, mending the land is a powerful way to capture some of the excess carbon causing global warming.

It is worth recalling that in the mid-1990, China’s challenges seemed insurmountable. Nearly 35% of the country was affected by desertification, mostly in little developed areas. About 60% of the population living in these areas was impoverished. But the landscape and fortunes can change for the better, even in the most difficult places like China’s Kubuqi Desert. Thanks to over 26-year continuous efforts, more than 100,000 farmers and herdsmen in Kubuqi desert have benefited from the desert oasis course by adopting a balanced development strategy of “ecology, economy and livelihood”, and through public-private sector and local community partnership. The local farmers’ annual income has increased from less than US$100 to more than US$5,000 in 20 years. All their children in that region are provided with good education through facility development. The local people have built an over6,000km2 desert oasis in Kubuqi, which used to be called a “dead desert” before. Now, they are growing organic fruits and vegetables, high-quality Chinese herbal medicines. Jobs with good income are being offered, and a balanced path of land remediation, ecological industry and urban development is being developed in Kubuqi area. The results echo what the Chinese President XI Jinping is that “improving ecological environment is developing productive forces; the green lands and clean waters like the gold and silver mountains.”

Ethiopia has restored over 1 million hectares and plans to restore more than 15 million hectares in future. In the Sahel region of Africa, communities have restored more than 5 million hectares of land, mostly on their own initiative, with similar outcomes on livelihoods and ecosystems. Mending degrading land is no longer mission impossible. It is the pathway out of poverty for a majority of the rural poor. And it is a major highway to our collective peace and prosperity.

It is no doubt that land degradation presents enormous challenge to the world peace and security.Whereas, there are no lack of successful evidences today that we can face the challenges and improve our environment through collective efforts. We call for effective alliances and strengthened partnership between governments, international organizations, academic institutions, NGOs and CSOs as well as private sector and entrepreneurs, for promoting active actions in global desertification control and poverty reduction, and building eco-civilization. And with our joint effort, we will contribute to the world peace and security and build an environmentally sound and sustainable society.

*Executive Secretary, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

Board Chairman, Elion Resource Group and Winner of Global Drylands Champion