Top UN officials on Tuesday emphasized the importance of restoring degrading lands to avoid or soften the potentially disastrous impacts of climate change in commemorating the World Day to Combat Desertification.
"Land degradation, caused or exacerbated by climate change, is not only a danger to livelihoods, but also a threat to peace and stability," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the World Day, observed annually on June 17.
Ban noted that recovering land that is degrading will have multiple benefits.
"We can avert the worst effects of climate change, produce more food and ease competition over resources," Ban said. "We can preserve vital ecosystem services, such as water retention, which protects us from floods or droughts."
The UN chief also said a comprehensive and large-scale approach to land recovery can create new jobs, business opportunities and livelihoods, allowing populations to not only survive, but thrive.
In 1994, the UN General Assembly declared June 17 "the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought" to promote public awareness of the issue, and the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa.
The World Day to Combat Desertification has been observed since 1995 to promote public awareness in international cooperation to combat desertification and the effects of drought. It is a unique occasion to remind everybody that desertification can be effectively tackled, that solutions are possible, and that key tools to this aim lie in strengthened community participation and cooperation at all levels.
The theme of this year's World Day is "Land belongs to the future, let's climate-proof it." Studies show that 24 billion metric tons of fertile soil are being eroded each year, and 2 billion hectares of degraded land have potential for recovery and restoration.
As member states continue efforts to elaborate a global development agenda beyond the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015, John Ashe, the president of the General Assembly, encouraged them to work together to mitigate patterns of desertification in order to meet the daily needs of the world's inhabitants, especially to produce food.
"Climate change can profoundly alter the relationship between water and the land. The amount and quality of the land we have today will be very different from what we will have in the future, " Ashe said in his message. "Unless we act swiftly to ensure all the land we have can withstand soil erosion and to prevent the loss of underground fresh water and the intrusion of salt water into underground fresh water, we will not have enough arable land to feed the world's population."
Ashe also stressed that a "land-degradation neutral world" should be a global norm. "Let us, the global community pursue it relentlessly, because each flood, drought, landslide, tornado, heat wave or coastal submersion robs us of an invaluable natural asset -- productive land."
Monique Barbut, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), said that climate change is changing the dynamic between water and the land.
"Our focus on the future impacts of climate change has blinded us to the crucial fact that the status of the land is already changing.. Soil formation takes many years, but just one flood can sweep it all away," she said. The UNCCD also held a global observance Tuesday at the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C. with high-level participation, where the winners of the Land for Life Award, for excellence in sustainable land management, would be announced. Many countries also followed suit by organizing national events to mark the World Day.