Africa: How the ‘restoration generation’ can save Africa’s land and livelihoods
Global cooperation and action are needed to combat land degradation and desertification and ensure a sustainable future.
Facing a triple planetary crisis linked to climate change, nature loss and pollution, the world will come together on June 5 to mark World Environment Day. Hundreds of millions of people will participate in this landmark moment for environmental action.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema Since 1973, World Environment Day, organized by the United Nations Environment Program, has helped spur action on some of the planet’s most pressing environmental problems. This year, the Day will focus the world’s attention on three perilous, yet often overlooked, challenges: land degradation, desertification and drought.
A fifth of the planet’s land is now degraded, lakes are shrivelling, forests are disappearing and farms are turning into dust bowls. This decline affects the well-being of more than 3 billion people – and the problem is expected to get worse.
The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which proudly supports World Environment Day, is helping to address this crisis. Launched in 2021, the Decade is a global effort to prevent and repair humanity’s damage to the natural world.
Three years later, countries committed to bringing 1 billion hectares of land back to life. This figure is encouraging but it is only the beginning. We need to restore at least 1.5 billion hectares by 2030 if we are to safeguard the fabric of life on Earth and avoid real consequences for ourselves, such as food shortages.
Green jobs
Nearly half of the area set aside for ecosystem restoration is in Africa, where up to 65 percent of productive land is degraded and desertification affects 45 percent of the continent’s land area. This restoration work has the potential to create millions of green jobs, and considerable efforts have been made across the continent.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers across Africa living in poverty on land degraded after decades of unsustainable farming practices, deforestation, pollution and climate change are transforming their dried-out monoculture plots into forest gardens thanks to the program African Farmers Restoring Food Systems. Led by Trees for the Future and using a “forest garden” technique to plant fruit trees that regenerate the soil and allow it to grow fruits, vegetables, nuts and other foods, farmers have restored more than 41 000 hectares out of a planned total of 229,000 hectares. hectares by 2030.
As many deserts expand due to climate change, 22 countries in Africa’s Sahel region are fighting back by building a Great Green Wall of forests and restored lands that stretches more than 8,000 kilometers across the continent.
I hope that this World Environment Day can be a turning point in our race to restore. Now is the time to move from commitments to action to prevent, stop and reverse ecosystem degradation.
We are the first generation to fully understand the immense threats facing the earth; we could be the last with a chance to reverse the course of destruction. Our priority must now be to restore ecosystems, replant our forests, re-moisten our marshes, and revive our soils.
Restoring ecosystems
Restoration can create refuges for wildlife, helping to stave off the extinction crisis facing our planet. It can combat climate change by restoring the capacity of forests and rivers to store the carbon responsible for global warming. This can create buffers around communities, protecting them from climate-related disasters, which are becoming more common with each passing year.
Restoration can also be a boon to economies: every dollar invested in restoring degraded land yields up to US$30 in economic benefits. But for restoration to succeed, we need everyone’s participation. Governments, businesses, scientists, faith-based organizations, civil society and individuals must join forces.
In 1992, the world came together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to adopt three historic conventions covering climate change, biodiversity and desertification. These agreements should serve as our North Star on the path to restoration. But we cannot stop the climate crisis today, biodiversity loss tomorrow and land degradation the day after tomorrow.
The sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is expected to be the largest-ever UN conference on land degradation and drought. This is an important opportunity to galvanize global efforts to address these critical issues, as time is of the essence.
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We must address all of these issues together – and recognize that healthy lands are essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, just six years away. The good news is that we have the solutions, the means and, with the UN Decade of Restoration, the platform to restore our lands to their former glory.
We need to manage land more sustainably to build resilience and fight poverty. We must recognize the value of biodiversity in our economic systems and place sustainability at the heart of decision-making. Countries must now deliver on restoration commitments.
We need global resolve to meet our restoration commitments. This year’s World Environment Day presents a golden opportunity to inspire hundreds of millions of people to take action. We are the generation that can make peace with the earth. So let’s repair the damage we’ve done; let’s give this generation and the next a chance for a better future.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program
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