US

More help to battle desertification urged

By XIN DINGDING CHINA DAILY
Updated: 2010-04-12 00:00

BEIJING — Developed nations should boost technical and financial support to help developing countries fight desertification and sandstorms, a senior UN official said on Friday.

A number of developed countries feel that desertification is a problem of developing countries and fail to provide assistance as promised, said Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

“When they fail to provide resources and investment to assist developing countries in improving land vegetation and sustainable land management patterns, they are also failing themselves,” Gnacadja said.

“When the wind blows, it will take the sand and dust from any given point and will not be stopped by any border,” he said.

Gnacadja’s message came amid increasing sandstorms forecast.

Sandstorms hit Northeast China on Thursday and Friday, and were forecast for Northwest China over the weekend.

Five sandstorms were also reported in March, including a record sandstorm on March 19 when most of the country and neighboring countries were blanketed by sand.

Some blamed China’s worsening desertification for the sandstorms, but Gnacadja said the finger-pointing is not justified.

Citing a global assessment using remote sensing data between 1981 and 2006, he said China is one of the countries making headway in combating desertification.

The area of degraded land in China was decreasing by an average of 7,500 square kilometers each year between 1999 and 2004, he said.

Presently, China has 2.6 million sq km of degraded land in dryland, accounting for 27 percent of the country’s land territory.

As laying blame will not solve the issue, fighting sandstorms, desertification and climate change requires the joint efforts of all members of the global community, he said.

Gnacadja lauded China for being a strong supporter of the desertification convention and called for strengthened cooperation to advance the fight against desertification.

“Enhancing soils anywhere enhances life everywhere,” he said.

Desertification, caused by over-grazing and over-planting of crops, swelling human populations and the misuse of irrigation, is threatening to drive millions of people from their homes worldwide. Vast dust storms can also damage the health of people continents away.

Some 57.6 million sq km of land on the planet is dryland, which is prone to desertification. So far, 3.6 million sq km of dryland have already degraded.