“EVERY SECOND, AROUND FOUR FOOTBALL FIELDS OF HEALTHY LAND ARE DEGRADED,” SAYS UN CHIEF GUTERRES

Sand buried villages in Al madam, United Arab Emirates. The villagers who built this beauty in 1970 abandoned it shortly after.

Sun 16 June 2024:

The world is losing four football fields worth of healthy land every second, warned the United Nations chief in a strong message ahead of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought which will be marked on Monday (Jun 17).

‘We are vandalising the Earth’

“The security, prosperity, and health of billions of people rely on thriving lands supporting lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems, but we’re vandalising the Earth that sustains us,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a statement published on Sunday (Jun 16).

According to the UN, nearly 40 per cent of land across the planet is degraded and we are losing more hectares every second. “Every second, around four football fields of healthy land are degraded,” Guterres added.

The land lost each second adds up to a loss of 100 million hectares each year, according to the UN. Notably, healthy land reportedly provides us with almost 95 per cent of our food, not to mention the fact that it also shelters people, provides jobs and is important for livelihoods.

According to the UN, millions of people across the world are at risk of being displaced due to desertification and drought.

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought 2024: All you need to know

The statement by the UN chief came ahead of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought which is observed each year on June 17, in a bid to draw attention to one of the most pressing environmental challenges – desertification, land degradation and drought.

This year’s theme is ‘United for Land. Our Legacy. Our Future’. The global observance of the day will be hosted by the Government of Germany in Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

The event will also mark the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), a legally binding international agreement, adopted in 1994, linking environment and development to sustainable land management.

The agreement has sought to address issues faced particularly by those who live in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas, also known as drylands.

“As the focus of this year’s World Day reminds us, we must be ‘United for Land’,” said the UN chief. He called on governments, businesses and communities to “come together and act.”

According to the UNCCD, nearly 84 per cent of all terrestrial ecosystems face the risk of drought-related wildfires.

The data by the UN also suggests that by 2045 around 135 million people may be displaced due to desertification.T he UNCCD says it is working on restoring 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030.

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