Land Restoration, Desertification, Drought Resilience Focus of World Environment Day 

Bennett Oghifo

Today, there will be a special focus on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience, as humanity marks World Environment Day (WED 2024).

WED is the biggest international day for the environment. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and held annually since 1973, it has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach. It is celebrated by millions of people across the world.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will host World Environment Day 2024 with a focus on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. Land restoration is a key pillar of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, which is critical to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said in a message that “humanity depends on land. Yet, all over the world, a toxic cocktail of pollution, climate chaos, and biodiversity decimation are turning healthy lands into deserts, and thriving ecosystems into dead zones. They are annihilating forests and grasslands, and sapping the strength of land to support ecosystems, agriculture, and communities.

“That means crops failing, water sources vanishing, economies weakened, and communities endangered – with the poorest hit hardest. Sustainable development is suffering. “And we are trapped in a deadly cycle – land use is responsible for eleven percent of the carbon dioxide emissions heating our planet. It’s time to break free.

“Countries must deliver on all their commitments to restore degraded ecosystems and land, and on the entire Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. They must use their new national climate action plans to set out how they will halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. And we must drastically scale-up finance to support developing countries to adapt to violent weather, protect nature, and support sustainable development.
“Inaction is too costly. But swift and effective action makes economic sense. Every dollar invested in ecosystem restoration creates up to thirty dollars in economic benefits.

“We are Generation Restoration. Together, let’s build a sustainable future for land, and for humanity.”

Also, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said “This World Environment Day, we are asking everyone to join the global movement to restore our lands, to build drought resilience and to combat desertification. Because land degradation and desertification affect over three billion people.  
“Freshwater ecosystems are also degraded, making it harder to grow crops and to raise livestock. This disproportionately affects smallholder farmers and, of course, the rural poor. But nature is resilient. By restoring ecosystems, we can slow the triple planetary crisis: the crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature and biodiversity loss, including desertification, and the crisis of pollution and waste. 

“We can help to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework. And we can get closer to limiting global temperature rise in line with the Paris Agreement by increasing carbon storage, including in the peatlands. And we can reduce poverty and food insecurity, in line with the SDGs. Work has begun.” 

“The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is backing commitments to restore one billion hectares of land, an area larger than China. 
“Last year, six countries pledged to restore 300,000 kilometres of rivers and 350 million hectares of wetlands. At the sixth UN Environment Assembly in February, nations agreed to strengthen sustainable land management. 

“And later this year, the three Rio Conventions – the one on climate, the one on biodiversity and the one on desertification – are each holding a Conference of Parties or COP to push further the ambitions of these conventions. 

“Land restoration can be a golden thread that ties these together, ties together action and ambition across all these three important gatherings. So we must make this work count.”