Of the Convention’s 197 Parties, 169 countries have declared that they are affected by desertification. Every year 75 billion tons of fertile soil is lost to land degradation. Similarly 12 million hectares of land are lost every year to desertification and drought alone. This is an area that could produce 20 million tons of grain. Desertification and land degradation cause USD 42 billion in lost earnings each year.

In 2007, the UN General Assembly declared 2010-2020 The United Nations Decade for Deserts and the fight against Desertification. The purpose of the Decade is to mobilize global action to fight land degradation, promote sustainable management of land resources and ensure long-term ability of drylands to support the livelihoods of local populations.

Purpose

With more lands around the world facing increasing deterioration and degradation, the United Nations General Assembly declared the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification, which runs from January 2010 to December 2020 to promote action that will protect the drylands. The Decade is an opportunity to make critical changes to secure the long-term ability of drylands to provide value for humanity's well-being.

The goals and objectives of the Decade flow directly from the General Assembly's resolution A/RES/64/201. The motivation for this resolution was the Parties' concern about the deteriorating situation of desertification in all regions, which has far-reaching implications for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability. The resolution mandates the pursuit of three objectives, which are:

• The organization of activities to observe the Decade in order to raise awareness of (a) the causes of and (b) solutions to ongoing land degradation and desertification in the framework of the ten-year strategic plan and framework to enhance implementation of the Convention' 2008-2018 Strategy.
• The mobilization of financial and technical support to the Convention secretariat, to support special initiatives in observance of the Decade as well as other observance events and activities worldwide; and
• Monitoring and reporting on progress in preparation of the Secretary General's Report to the General Assembly at its 69th Session on the status of implementation of the resolution. 

Impact

When land degradation happens in the world's drylands, it often creates desert-like conditions. Drylands are home to more than 2.1 billion people (2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment); for every three people, one calls drylands home, and growth rates in these areas are faster than in any other ecological zone.

Drylands meet the basic needs of a significant proportion of the world, but are under threat. They harbor some of the world's most valuable and rarest biodiversity. They are major contributors to the world's breadbasket, considering that one in every three crops under cultivation today has its origins in the drylands. They are valuable indigenous food vaults because the wild ancestors and relatives of these plants still grow there. Drylands support 50% of the world's livestock, are wildlife habitats and account for nearly half of all cultivated systems (2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment).​​

Drivers of land degradation

There is no linear cause-effect process that leads to land degradation in the drylands, but its drivers, which interact in complex ways, are known. They change over time and vary by location. The direct drivers are climatic, especially low soil moisture, rainfall patterns and evaporation. The indirect drivers are mostly human derived, and include poverty, technology used, global and local market trends and sociopolitical dynamics. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of land degradation.

Food Security – World's Breadbasket at Risk

Drylands take up 41.3% of the land surface, and up to 44% of all the world's cultivated systems are in drylands. These lands have been largely used as rangelands, which are habitats for wildlife and currently support 50% of the world’s livestock. Sadly, these lands are increasingly being converted into cropland (2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment).

Poverty – Few Comforts in Life

The livelihoods of nearly 1 billion of the poorest and most marginalized people, who live in the most vulnerable areas, are threatened by desertification. The Millennium Assessment found that the well-being of dryland peoples is lower than that of people in other ecological systems. Infant mortality rates are highest and gross national product (GNP) per capita is lowest.

Water scarcity

Water scarcity affects between 1-2 billion people, most of whom live in drylands. Under the climate change scenario, nearly half of the world's population in 2030 will be living in areas of high water stress. In some arid and semi-arid areas, it will displace up to between 24 million and 700 million people (2009 World Water Development Report, Water in a Changing World).

Carbon absorption

Drylands play a vital role in local, but also global climate regulation. These regions store approximately 46% of the global carbon share (2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment).

​Natural regeneration of vegetation cover and soils in arid areas takes 5-10 times longer than in favorable areas with greater and more regular rainfall. Between 1983 and 2003, approximately 16% of the land improved, of which 20% is cropland and 43% rangeland (2010 GEF-STAP, Report of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel to the Fourth GEF Assembly).

Sustainable Land Management – a Solution

Applying sustainable land management (SLM) practices helps to combat desertification and recover and rehabilitate land. SLM can be used to rehabilitate degraded drylands to store carbon from the atmosphere in order to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN).

Quick facts

Value of drylands for livelihoods

• over 2 billion people live in the world's deserts and drylands
• 46 per cent of global carbon is stored in drylands
• 44 per cent of all cultivated systems is in drylands
• 30 per cent of all cultivated plants came from drylands

Improvements

• 16 per cent of degraded land was improved in 1981-2003
• 43 per cent was in rangelands
• 18 per cent was cropland

Impact of desertification and land degradation3

• 24 per cent of the land, globally, is degrading
• 167 countries affected by desertification
• 28-27 billion tons of fertile soil is lost every year
• 12 million hectares of land, an area the size of Benin, are lost every year
• Land lost could produce 20 million tons of grain

Drivers of desertification and land degradation

• There is no direct cause and effect in the process of land degradation in the drylands. The drivers of desertification interact in complex ways. They change over time and vary by location
• Direct drivers are climatic, especially low soil moisture, rainfall patterns and evaporation
• Indirect drivers are mostly human derived, and include poverty, technology used, global and local market trends and sociopolitical dynamics. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of land degradation

Solutions

• Applying sustainable land management practices to combat desertification and to recover and rehabilitate land; soil, water and vegetation
• Sustainable land management refers to the multi-functional use of land, and is contrasted to mono-functional land uses
• The application of SLM has been shown to increase yields by between 30-170 per cent

All data from 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment otherwise clarified

Actions

Land degradation is a problem worldwide. Land restoration and rehabilitation are the answer. Let us act now to avoid the devastating consequences of inaction. Please visit the following pages and read success stories in the left-hand menu to learn more about practical solutions to the global issues of land degradation and desertification:

Story of Kehkashan Basu 2015 Gender Day

Events

• 2017: Gender Day, Ordos, China
• 2016: Land for Life – Create Wealth Transform Lives
• 2015: Living Land Book Marks The Decade
• 2015: Land for Life – Managing Land Sustainably for Better Livelihoods
• 2015: Gender Day, Ankara, Türkiye
• 2014: TerrAfrica Green Radio Competition on Sustainable Land and Water Management Coverage
• 2013: Deserts and Desertification Film Festival in Namibia
• 2013: Gender Day, Windhoek, Namibia
• 2012: Youth4Land Online Media Campaign Launched
• 2011: Celebrity Musicians Honor UNDDD with Performances in the Algerian Sahara Desert
• 2010: Launch of The UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification with events in Africa, the Asia-Pacific Region, Europe and North America

Message from land and soil

Hi there! My first name is Land, my surname is Soil.

Thank you for visiting with me today. I know you know a lot about me, but somehow, we’ve never really met or talked. So let me introduce myself very briefly.

As I said my surname is soil. I am only about six inches tall, on average, from the tip of my head, the topsoil, to the soles of my feet - the bedrock that is beneath me. That’s a short distance to your extinction, if you don’t take good care of me.

With the help of termites and all the other organisms living in the soil that you don’t see but feed me to keep me healthy, I am doing my best to feed you, and to provide clean, adequate and healthy water. If you take good care of me, I promise to be there for you and your children, for generations to come.

But I am afraid that my family and I are losing the battle. A large part of my family is now on the road to extinction. It only takes a short time to destroy us, while our development and maturity so that we can produce and reproduce takes a very, very long time.

You see, every year, between 28-75 billion tons of soil is being eroded. This means that you, as an individual, are losing about 4-10 tons of soil, every year. Fertile land is being lost through human action and weather-related events, such as flush floods and drought. Put another way, every second, 24 football pitches of fertile land become unproductive due to desertification and drought alone!

What’s more troubling for me and my family is the level of ignorance among the majority of the human race. For example, very few people know that only about 3.3% of the entire Earth is productive land. Very few people value us. Worse, most people assume that the drier members of my family – the drylands that make up nearly 34% of the Earth – are wastelands; land of no value. And yet, a lot of the foods you eat today originated from these fragile soils. In fact, these dry areas make up 44% of all the systems that are cultivated, and half of the world’s wildlife lives there!

But I am delighted that I met you today because I can share with you some secrets that will help us all.

Remember, if we – land or soil – are destroyed, you will bear the consequences in future. Today’s adults will soon be gone, and they may take us with them if urgent action is not taken. If we are gone by the time you have your family, how you will feed yourselves and your children? Where will you find clean and adequate running water?

So here are two important secrets for you. First, remember that your parents are not the only ones who own us, even if they hold a title deed. You are also a shareholder of the land because as a matter of fact, you have only loaned it to them for use, plus we were bequeathed to them, in full health, by their parents. So you have a right to hold them accountable for how they are using the land. If you don’t, you will only have yourself to blame in future.

Second, you have a secret weapon that you can now use to call them to action. Last June (2012), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the world leaders agreed to strive to achieve a land that is free of degradation – they called it a ‘land-degradation neutral world’.

What is their aspiration? To get to a point where degrading land is not more than the land they are restoring – because you see, every time we serve you without being taken good care of ourselves, we grow weak. But if they can avoid mismanaging us, and if they can intervene in time whenever it happens, we can maintain our health or be restored back to full health quickly. Today, more than 2 billion hectares of land is in ill-health, but it can be restored to full health, possibly by 2030, if there is political will.

It takes very little to be land-degradation neutral. Just three commitments. The commitment to avoid any further land and soil degradation. The commitment to restore degraded land for re-use. And third, whenever degrading land or soil becomes unavoidable, making the commitment to restore an equal amount of already degraded land or soil, ideally, in the same ecosystem and in the same timeframe. It is that simple and the costs are minimal if we start now. The cost of doing it later will be much, much higher. And you will be paying the price.

Just in case you are tempted to think that you are not part of the problem, let me point out that you may be eating or drinking stuff that was imported from such a place. Considering that 167 countries have declared that they suffer from desertification, could it be that the production of your food and water led to a decline in my health?

What will it take you to change? To change how you view me – as dirt? To change your attitude towards me? What will it take to make you an active and vocal supporter of a world where healthy land is priced as part of the good life. Where we – land and soil – are cared for and well fed, so that you too can enjoy the best life?

What will it take? Will you be my advocate today? Will you speak on my behalf? Will you tell the world that you care about my health today because it matters for you? Will you?

I sure hope so!

Your daily dinner table guest, Land soil