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Your Excellency Barbara CREECY, Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries of South Africa and Chairperson of AMCEN, Excellencies,  Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for bringing us together today to address an urgent threat to humanity.  The COVID-19 is more than a health crisis. It is a socio-economic crisis and a growing threat to regional and global security. It is also a threat to our environment.  Today’s session is therefore timely and clearly warranted. More than ever, this COVID-19 crisis has reminded us of how much we depend on nature for our health, our wealth and our food systems.   To the surprise of many pundits, Africa turned out to be so far very resilient to the pandemic, thanks to incredible and courageous decisions throughout the continent.  However, despite heroic efforts by African leaders and African people, the continent’s economy is already hit very hard. While the socio-economic consequences have not been fully assessed yet, millions of people from across the continent are affected, reversing hard-won progress made in many fronts.  Furthermore, the pandemic will have serious environmental consequences. Indeed, when jobs are lost, when cities are pushing people back to rural areas, when families have no other source of revenue, land and nature are the only safe heaven there is. Nature is the GDP of the poor.   Madame Chair, The linkages between land degradation, climate change and biodiversity loss have been clearly established by all our scientific bodies. Today, the spread of zoonotic diseases such as COVID is the starker example of this triple challenge and its devastating effects on humans and on our environment.  Fortunately, the contrary is also true: land and ecosystem restoration have a remarkably positive impact on the climate. Climate action, in turn, creates better conditions for a thriving land and ecosystems in general, creating a triple opportunity for sustainable growth and development, which is precisely what we need after COVID.  Madame Chair,  Health is our most basic human right and one of the most important indicators of sustainable development. We rely on healthy ecosystems and healthy land, to support healthy societies and communities. For many of us in Africa, land is the sole source of livelihoods and the only safety net there is.  As such, today I have a simple ask to all of you: bring land to the centre of your COVID recovery conversations and actions. Why? Because it will not only help address the climate and biodiversity crises but also have an impact on other pressing issues, such as food security, energy generation and distribution, job creation and health and help deliver Agendas 2030 and 2063.  The wetland rehabilitation in Mpumalanga South Africa  for example yielded tremendous benefits for people and nature alike:   Thanks to the efforts of all those involved, the rehabilitated wetland now provides services estimated at  419 US dollars per year to some 70 per cent of local households. 419 USD per year may seem small. Not in an area where half of households survive on an income of less than 690 US dollars per year.      Land restoration puts carbon back in the soil where it belongs. The land-use sector, through a combination of conservation, sustainable management, and restoration, has great potential to reduce emissions and sequester carbon.  Land represents the largest sink for carbon -even larger than oceans. Land has the additional advantage that there are 500 million farming families that can help in the global effort to draw carbon from the atmosphere and put it back in our soils and vegetation.  Take for example the Kenya agricultural Carbon project.  About 40,000 smallholders in western Kenya adopted a variety of sustainable agriculture practices including soil conservation and forestry. In 2014, the project achieved a reduction close to 25’000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. More importantly, farmers’ yields increased by up to 15 to 20 per cent. The same is true for the Farmer managed natural regeneration in Niger – a low-cost land restoration technique used to combat poverty and hunger amongst poor subsistence farmers. The tree cover increased 20 times offering a larger carbon sink. The real farm income doubled for 900,000 farms.  Soil fertility improved to boost grain yields by 10 per cent. As a consequence, biodiversity also significantly improved. Allow me to repeat: the COVID -19 crisis has become a major economic and social crisis. Inflation and food prices are rising. Land restoration brings degraded land back to life and helps us address the expanding food gap we are facing. Very importantly, it does it at a lower cost than “business as usual”.  For example, it can cost less than 100 USD to rehabilitate one hectare of farmland using traditional agro-forestry, water conservation, and livestock management practices.  Land and nature in general will no doubt play a central role in the reconstruction of African economies. Agriculture, tourism, livestock, timber and non-timber products are essential elements of the economy.  Land restoration is not divisive. It can unite us. Rich and poor. North and South. Governments and Civil Society. Public and Private Sector. Land restoration benefits us all. We can indeed turn the triple challenge that I described into a triple opportunity - by reinforcing positive practices at each stage. This will foster closer collaboration and set the stage for a new political and investment paradigm.  As part of its preparations for a post-COVID recovery, Africa may wish to consider including in its negotiations with its creditors the notion of debt swap for land restoration and nature conservation. Most countries will not be able to reconcile the payment of their debt with a large effort to rebuild their economies. In order to re-invest in the rural economy in support of the poorest of the poor, some countries may need a softer approach to the debt burden, short of debt forgiveness.  Madam chair,  Today’s meeting is important. It is a call to action – at scale, a call for unity, a call for solidarity.  UNCCD stands with you.   Thank you.    

UNFCCC SBSTA 52 Climate Dialogues: Dialogue on the relationship between land and climate change adaptation related matters  Opening remarks by UNCCD Executive Secretary  Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw Excellencies,  Colleagues and friends,  I am truly delighted to be here today. I want to congratulate my friend Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu for convening this panel and directing our attention to the clear, but sometimes overlooked, linkage between land and climate.     At UNCCD, we guide ourselves by the motto healthy land, healthy people. I can easily add a second phrase: healthy land, healthy climate, for healthy people. And vice versa.   Land and climate are intrinsically linked.     All of us, gathered here today, know too well how climate change exacerbates land degradation and diminishes carbon uptake by the land. We also know that land degradation reduces the resilience of human and natural systems to cope with climate change. The land use sector represents almost a quarter of total global emissions.     On the other hand, land restoration puts carbon back in the soil where it belongs.  Land restoration brings degraded land back to life and helps us address the expanding food gap we are facing. Very importantly, it does it a lower cost than “business as usual”.     The IPCC and IPBES latest reports could not have been clearer: climate change and land degradation are like the twin engines of our destruction, with devastating impacts on humans and ecosystems. This linkage has been known for a long time.  But we have, collectively failed to act. We are neither keeping up with the challenges we face nor grasping the opportunities inherent in a joined-up approach.    Today, with that awareness, I have a simple ask for you: bring land to the center of your conversations around climate, adaptation and resilience. We should, together, walk the talk.     The land-use sector, through a combination of conservation, sustainable management, and restoration, has great potential to reduce emissions and sequester carbon. Land represents the largest sink for carbon -even larger than oceans. Land has the additional advantage that there are 500 million farming families that can help in the global effort to draw carbon from the atmosphere and put it where it belongs: in our soils and vegetation.   Done right, land management can help increase both human and biophysical resilience. It is not a question of “whether or not” this is possible. Rather, the question is one of the political will to bring land into balance, thereby bringing food, energy and nature also into balance.   Put another way, optimizing « what we do where » on land has the potential to accelerate global efforts to help address the COVID-19 crisis but also to achieve all the Sustainable Development Goals, including climate action. A handful of SDG targets, such as Land Degradation Neutrality, can be harnessed to leverage real gains across the board. Land Degradation Neutrality essentially balances out tradeoffs.  It can be used to optimize nature-based solutions at the landscape level so those solutions can be taken to scale.   For example, it can cost less than 100 USD to rehabilitate one hectare of farmland using traditional agro-forestry, water conservation, and livestock management practices. Land restoration is therefore the cheapest solution to climate change, while at the same time creating multiple other opportunities.     We now have the platforms – such as this one - and the opportunity to move in that direction, urgently and with determination, away from our business-as-usual mindset.   2021 will be the first time since 1992 when all 3 Rio Convention COPs will take place in the same year. It will also be a turning point for our post-pandemic recovery, particularly as we mark the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. I invite you all to use these opportunities wisely. Land restoration is not divisive. It can unite us. Rich and poor. North and South. Governments and Civil Society. Public and Private Sector. Land restoration benefits us all.   Just last week, G20 leaders launched “the Global Initiative on Reducing Land Degradation and Enhancing Conservation of Terrestrial Habitats” to prevent, halt, and reverse land degradation. Land -land restoration- is gaining a renewed momentum on the world stage.     We can turn what is currently a vicious circular relationship between land and climate change into a virtuous relationship - by reinforcing positive practices at each stage. This will foster closer collaboration, get us out of our silos and set the stage for a new political and investment paradigm. Together with my other two colleagues of the Rio Conventions, we are already “walking the talk”. We hope you will continue to support us in that endeavor.     Addressing the land, climate -and biodiversity- nexus is a collective objective that requires a collective response. I am encouraged by today’s meeting. I wish you all the best on your deliberations and look forward to a closer collaboration between our Conventions.   Thank you.  

En español Central American Committee on Environment and Development (CCAD) and the UNCCD signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at a virtual ceremony on 27 November to promote cooperation in combating desertification between the convention and the countries in Central America and the Caribbean, including Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic. The new agreement will establish a joint framework for action to combat land degradation and address drought and water scarcity problems through a bottom-up and gender-sensitive approach while promoting land degradation neutrality in national and subregional strategies and programmes as an accelerator to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.  Welcoming the new agreement, the Minister of Environment of Nicaragua and President Pro-tempore of the CCAD Sumaya Castillo highlighted that despite recent natural disasters such as hurricanes and drought putting a heavy toll on Central America, there is an indestructible sense of strength and unity in the region, where measures to assess funds in support of vulnerable populations are already underway. She also mentioned the important contribution from the LDN Fund that supports an innovative programme in Nicaragua to plant cocoa and coffee trees on degraded areas to restore land. The enterprise will plant 2000 hectares to reforest a severely degraded area, adding hardwood species to restore the forest canopy for soil protection and better water retention. The UNCCD Executive Secretary Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw expressed solidarity with those affected by the recent hurricanes Iota and Eta in Central America. He noted that the new MoU stresses the need for governments, civil society, private sector and citizens to anticipate and mitigate future extreme events by easing the pressure on the land and collectively implementing concrete actions for ecosystem protection. The signing ceremony also featured a video about actions to combat desertification implemented in Nicaragua, prepared by the Ministry of the Environment.

Background: In the year 2020, we witnessed the Covid-19 pandemic spread, as people across the globe faced devastating impacts both socially and economically. To many, the pandemic feels like a force out of their control. Yet, an extensive look may perhaps reveal to us that our actions as a society has had a direct impact on the birth of these pandemics. To mark the 2020 World Soil Day (Saturday the 5th of December), the UNCCD Capacity Development and Innovations Office (CDIO) invites you to participate in our essay competition exploring the concept of ‘one health’ and examining the relationship between our treatment of the planet’s land and the increased likelihood of these pandemics. Participation in the essay competition is open to everyone and is FREE! Participants should register through THIS FORM. Registration means agreement to the following rules: Topics: The goal of this competition is to explore Covid-19, a topic of current and global importance, specifically, how our actions towards the planet’s land resources can play a role in dealing with and helping in preventing such pandemics from occurring in the future. Submitted essays should explore inter alia: The diagnosis (the objective reality): The nature of Covid-19 and its relation to our attitude to land. The prescription and solution: What issues must be addressed for our improved relation to land. And what concrete actions we may take in these regards in preventing or minimizing the occurrence of these pandemics in the future? Submissions must not include any endorsements of products or services, or any obscene, violent, racist, religious intolerance or defamatory content. Incomplete entries or entries that do not comply with the formal specifications will be automatically disqualified.   Format: All essays must be submitted through link in PDF format. Participants in the primary school student category can also choose to submit one essay together as a group. In this case, all participants’ name should be included in submitted document. Each essay is allowed a minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 1500 words. Essays can be submitted in English, French, Russian or Spanish. All entries must be original works produced by the participant which have not been published anywhere.  The participants grant the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), its partners and other UN agencies as well as other persons or entities authorized by the UNCCD, a free of charge, non-exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, perpetual, worldwide license to use the copyright, related rights or any other intellectual property rights that have arisen by law or will arise by law from the submitted essays. The UNCCD is entitled to publish the essays but has no obligation to do so.    Prizes: All submitted essays will be assessed by the UNCCD Capacity Development and Innovations Office (CDIO) which will determine the winners, to be awarded prizes as follows: First place – 300 euros Second place – 200 euros Third place – 100 euros Furthermore, special individual prizes will be awarded as listed below: Winning essay submitted by land practitioners – 100 euros Winning essay submitted by secondary school students (Age 14-18) – 100 euros Winning essay submitted by primary school students (Age 13 and below) – 100 euros For the purposes of this competition, a land practitioner is defined as someone who works in the field of agriculture, forestry, landscaping, rangeland or watershed management. Winning the overall (first, second or third) prize is not mutually exclusive from winning any of the special individual prizes. What this means is that participants have the possibility of, for example, winning the first place 300-euro prize AND the winning essay prize for secondary school students if they qualify to participate as a secondary school student. Please note that by claiming one of the individual special prizes, you agree to showing proof of identification when requested. Selected winners will be featured in the work of the UNCCD-CDIO via its various media channels.  Lastly, all participants will be granted a certificate from the UNCCD for participation in the essay competition. Special certificates shall be given to all winners. UNCCD memorabilia will also be given depending on availability.   Deadline: All participants must submit their essay by 23:59 Bonn (Germany) Time (GMT+1), on the 5th of February 2021.   Assessment and Announcement of Results: All essays will be assessed by the CDIO. All decisions made in this regard are FINAL and may not be contested.  The winners will be announced in the final week of February. The UNCCD reserves the right to change this date. The prizes are as stated and are non‐transferable. If due to circumstances beyond the UNCCD’s control, the UNCCD is unable to provide a stated prize, the UNCCD reserves the right to award a substitute prize of equal value. The winners will be notified by email within 7 (seven) working days of being selected. The UNCCD will actively endeavor to contact the winners to make arrangements for the delivery of the prizes for a period of 1 (one) month following the announcement of the competition winners. In the event that the UNCCD is unable to contact the winner in this notification period, the UNCCD reserves the right to reallocate the prize concerned. Entrants shall note that by submitting an entry, they are deemed to have agreed that if picked as a winner their name may be disclosed to any third party, by the UNCCD, when providing a list of the names of the entrants where requested.   How to Register: Individuals who want to participate simply have to fill out a short survey and upload their essay through this LINK. Please note that by ticking either the ‘land practitioner’, ‘secondary school student’ or ‘primary school student’ box in question 6, you agree to showing proof of identification upon request. Contact: If participants have any questions or comments or if they need assistance, they should send an email to the Capacity Building Marketplace team at jsanz@unccd.int.  

Nominations for the 2021 Land for Life Award of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) opened today. The submission of nominees will close after two months, on 28 January 2021.    The Award recognizes initiatives to halt, reduce and/or reverse land degradation that have had a positive impact on people and their land by using a holistic approach as well as practices that address both the environmental and social aspects of land management.   Under the theme “Healthy Land, Healthy Lives,” the 2021 Award will spotlight changemakers doing innovative land restoration and conservation that is both promoting the well-being of communities and improving their relationship with nature. It will reflect land as part of the solution, as the communities around the world recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better around a social contract for nature.    Winners will be invited to present their projects and work at international forums, including the Kubuqi International Desertification Forum in China, where the Award Ceremony will take place in mid-2021, and at the Fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention at the end of 2021.   These forums offer winners special access to potential new funding partners and stakeholders.    Previous winners include World Vision (Australia), SEKEM (Egypt), Watershed Organization Trust (India) and Réseau MARP (Burkina Faso).   By winning the prestigious award, some have expanded their projects, secured new partnerships or been recognized by other international and national awards.  Mr. Tony Rinaudo, World Vision Australia, said “The Land for Life Award has played a significant role in lifting the profile of a relatively obscure intervention – Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) globally, giving it wider visibility and validating it as an effective tool in land and tree restoration. […] Today, FMNR is a normal part of the development lexicon when it comes to land restoration approaches and is considered a ‘best practice’ by many donors and development practitioners alike.”  “So much has awareness grown that the flagship intervention being promoted by the Global Evergreening Alliance, a coalition of NGOs, conservation groups, research institutions and professionals – is FMNR. In the seven years since World Vision was granted the Land for Life Award, the practice of FMNR, and individuals promoting it, have gone onto win other nationally and internationally significant awards,” Mr Rinaudo said.  ”In our quest to establish a new social contract for nature and ensure a healthier and safer future for all, we need to promote the connection between people and their environment, on the one hand, and focus on innovative approaches that involve communities, empower women and promote new technologies on the other. In these uncertain times where a growing number of infectious diseases is coming through land use change, we are searching for positive and inspiring models that are creating healthy lives by turning degrading land into healthy land,” says Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD.    The Land for Life Award also has a special China Award that celebrates exceptional commitment to sustainable land management in China.     Elion Foundation  is the main sponsor of the Land for Life Programme, but leads the special China Award together with the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Provincial Governmental of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.     Notes to Editors    For further information regarding the rules and criteria, visit the Land for Life Award webpage.    Contact: Land for Life programme: L4L@unccd.int   Additional Quotes from Previous Winners:  Ms. Marcella D’Souza, WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS):  "The L4L Award helped us connect and engage with the ELD Secretariat at the GIZ based out of Bonn, who we had met at Kubuqi. This resulted in a new project on Economic Valuation of regenerating degraded lands through Watershed Development, implemented by our research unit – the WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS). In addition, the Award and the exposure it provided us helped transition our watershed-focussed interventions to a more holistic ecosystems-based approach targeted at building adaptive capacities and resilience of rural communities to climate and non-climate risks. This led to another partnership and project with the ambition to develop a state level "Roadmap for Ecosystems-based Adaptation" which involves multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral engagement and collaboration across scales."  Mr. Mathieu Ouédraogo, Réseau MARP: “Winning the Land for Life Award is certainly a great honor, but above all a major opportunity. This distinction led the communities we work with to be more thorough in the actions they carry out daily, focusing on tangible results. Quantitatively, we have doubled our objective in terms of achievements in the field, thanks to the worldwide recognition of our efforts.”  Mr. Awadalla Hamid, Practical Action Sudan: “The award has definitely a great impact on the project and the life of the people of Darfur, as we managed to secure an additional fund for a second phase of the same project, 10M Euros from the European Union to support more families in Wadi ElKu project area, and to cover additional 180km along the Wadi ElKu Catchment in North Darfur.”  About the UNCCD  The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is an international agreement on good land stewardship. Through partnerships, the Convention’s 197 Parties set up robust systems to manage land degradation and drought promptly and effectively. Good land stewardship based on a sound policy and science helps integrate and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, builds resilience to climate change and prevents biodiversity loss. Land also plays a key role in the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, securing rural livelihoods and creating green jobs, supporting community resilience and maintaining the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services.   

The UNCCD Land for Life Award is back! We are looking for outstanding commitments and creative approaches to combat desertification and drought. Our award goes beyond raising awareness on the issues of land degradation and deforestation. We also want to give YOU the opportunity to introduce to the world the stories and projects of changemakers around the globe who help create a healthier and more sustainable future!  The scientists who address the origins and the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 confirm that healthy land is essential to human health, well-being and resilience. This year’s L4L Award seeks to reward the land users whose conservation work is protecting the vital connection between humanity and the environment! Do you have a success story that deserves recognition for promoting a new social contract for nature and supports the principle of Healthy Land, Healthy Lives? Visit the L4L Award page for more information and send us your submission by 14 February 2021. Read more: Official press release Land for Life award webpage