Dryland ecosystems cover some 43 percent of Africa. They’re home to more than half a billion people dependent on the land for their food and livelihoods, largely through farming and pastoralism, harbor some of the continent’s most celebrated wildlife and plant species, and produce much of the continent’s food.

But how often do global climate change and development conversations focus on African drylands? And when they do, is the narrative applied to them one of optimism and abundance, or one of scarcity and neglect?

As 2020 marks a turning point for many global climate agendas, the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF), the world’s largest knowledge-led organization on sustainable land use, focused its annual Africa-targeted conference specifically on the continent’s drylands, “GLF Africa: Restoring Africa’s Drylands,” running online for two days beginning 2 June.

This comes in a bid to elevate the science and initiatives happening in African drylands, to in turn see the ecosystems more prominently incorporated into the numerous environmental summits taking place this year: the much-anticipated UN Food Systems Summit, the establishment of a new set of targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Climate Change Summit (COP 26), and the imminent 5 June launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

“This year determines how we land in 2030, which is the year we need to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals,” said João Campari, the leader of the Food Practice of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Drylands are terrestrial landscapes where the evaporation and transpiration of water into the atmosphere is at least 150 percent greater than the amount of rainfall. Drylands cover more than 40 percent of the world’s terrestrial area, hold a third of all biodiversity hotspots and 44 percent of agricultural land. They’re categorized based on their aridity, rising from dry and sub-humid lands such as savannahs and grasslands up to hyper-arid lands like the Sahara.

“About one-third of the world’s population lives in drylands, and yet they are largely overlooked and ignored,” said Robert Nasi, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Africa’s drylands are facing steep challenges due to climate change and lessening rainfall, striking regions with water scarcity and raising temperatures in the Sahel – a particularly vulnerable dryland region that borders the Sahara – 1.5 times faster than the global average. The economic fallout of COVID-19 has seen declines in livestock exports fall by up to 50 percent and rises in imported food prices by the same amount. Solutions to reverse degradation in drylands must include water, land, vegetation and human resources at once. “Anything that is a single, simplistic, silver-bullet solution is likely to fail,” said Nasi.

The two-day event began on 2 June to put forward multifaceted solutions, featuring speakers from government, youth, science, local communities, the private sector, NGOs, media and a number of environmental and development organizations. The first day was divided into nine scientific sessions, four plenaries, film screenings, a virtual tour, digital exhibitions, two musical performances from Grammy-nominated artists Fatoumata Diawara and Rocky Dawuni, workshops, networking, and a number of inspirational speeches.

De-bunking drylands myths

“Life teems below ground,” stated a virtual tour of African drylands produced by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), alluding to the unseen nature of drylands. Drylands harbor over half of all carbon stored in soil, with immense root systems and a wealth of microorganisms found only in these landscapes. But the light cast on drylands in the public discourse tends shine on their environmental and social struggles rather than their rich complexity.

In the opening plenary of the GLF event, Ibrahim Thiaw, who leads the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and Drought, outlined the five most common myths about drylands: that they’re unproductive, have little to offer the biodiversity and climate crises, don’t contribute to economies, are wastelands unworthy of investment, and that their inhabitants are the cause of their destruction. To each, he gave counter arguments, from the cotton grown in drylands that supports the global fashion industry, to massive opportunities for clean energy production, to the extraordinarily resource-efficient communities who have honed their relationships with the land over centuries.

“Without its drylands, Africa would not be Africa,” said Thiaw. “Change is homemade, not imported… it is time to reset, to rethink Africa’s development, to turn challenges into opportunities.” READ further from the source