Pakistan among ‘drought-hit’ countries Says UN
According to the UN’s ‘Global Land Outlook’ report, Pakistan has been included as one of the ‘drought-affected’ nations in the last two years (2020–2022).
According to a research released by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) ahead of World Drought Day (June 17), Asia has had the highest total number of people affected by drought over the last century.
Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, and Zambia are among the 23 countries named in the report.
The report predicts the outcomes by 2050 and the risks involved, stating that by 2050, an additional 4 million square kilometers of natural areas, roughly the size of India and Pakistan, will require restoration measures, as well as protection of areas important for biodiversity, water regulation, soil and carbon stock conservation, and provision of critical ecosystem functions.
Up to 40% of the planet’s land is degraded, affecting half of people and threatening about half of the $44 trillion global GDP. The analysis predicts further degradation of an area nearly the size of South America if business as usual continues until 2050.
According to the paper, countries’ present goal to repair one billion degraded hectares by 2030 will cost $1.6 trillion this decade, which is a fraction of the $700 billion in yearly fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies that exist right now
The paper warns that humanity has never confronted such a diverse range of known and unknown risks and hazards while interacting in a hyper-connected and fast changing environment.
According to the research, agriculture may pivot from being the primary cause of degradation to becoming the primary catalyst for land and soil restoration using a variety of traditional and modern regenerative food production approaches.
Desertification, land degradation, and drought disproportionately affect poor rural populations, smallholder farmers, women, youth, indigenous peoples, and other vulnerable groups. At the same time, indigenous peoples’ and communities’ traditional and local knowledge offer a tremendous reservoir of human and social capital that must be maintained and can be utilized to safeguard and restore natural capital.
The research stressed the need for immediate financial support to promote conservation and restoration in developing nations that have a larger proportion of the global distribution of intact, bio diverse, and carbon-rich ecosystems.
Food supply disruptions, forced migration, rapid biodiversity loss, and species extinctions will all become more common if current land degradation trends continue, according to the report, which will be accompanied by an increased risk of zoonotic diseases like Covid-19, declining human health, and land resource conflict.
According to the report, many regenerative agricultural approaches have the potential to boost food yields and nutritional quality while lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing carbon from the environment.
