Annex III: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

《联合国防治荒漠化公约》履约审查委员会第二十三届会议（CRIC23）将于2025年12月1日至5日在巴拿马城召开 CRIC23 会徽凸显巴拿马在土地、气候和生物多样性方面的自然承诺 波恩/巴拿马城 2025年9月15日——来自196个国家和欧盟的代表将于2025年12月1日至5日在巴拿马召开会议，作为唯一在该领域具有法律约束力的全球条约缔约方，审查其在防治荒漠化、土地退化和干旱方面的努力——这是与生物多样性和气候并列的三大《里约公约》之一。 联合国防治荒漠化公约（UNCCD）履约审查委员会第二十三届会议（CRIC23）将汇聚来自各国政府、民间社会和学术界的大约500名代表，共同评估推进公约目标的进展。 自1996年成为 UNCCD 签署国以来，巴拿马承诺到2030年实现“土地退化零增长”，确定了31个关键热点，并推动再造林和干旱走廊适应项目——凸显其作为区域东道国的角色。2023年，该国经历了有记录以来最干旱的一年，水资源短缺扰乱了巴拿马运河的通航，凸显了地方干旱如何引发全球性后果。 巴拿马环境部长胡安·卡洛斯·纳瓦罗表示：“从来没有一个国家在同一年主办联合国三大环境公约——气候行动、生物多样性、荒漠化和可持续土地管理。巴拿马借此重申其保护自然和推进可持续发展的承诺，同时再次呼吁统筹管理这三大支柱，以应对地球危机，为我们的社区建设一个富有韧性的未来。” UNCCD 执行秘书亚斯敏·福阿德（Yasmine Fouad）表示：“严重的干旱和肥沃土地的流失正在加剧粮食和能源生产压力，迫使农村社区流离失所，并威胁着数百万人的生计。在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区，这一现象尤为明显——该地区至少20%的土地正遭受严重退化。通过主办 CRIC23，巴拿马将自身置于集体应对行动的中心——从国家层面的“自然承诺”到区域性的“干旱走廊倡议”——并为全球加强抗旱能力和恢复土地的紧迫需求注入新的动力。。” 本次履约审查委员会会议还将特别关注性别问题。妇女是受土地退化影响最严重的群体之一，她们日复一日地承受着土壤退化和干旱带来的后果，却仍坚守在维系家庭、保障粮食供给的最前线。 最新的 UNCCD 数据显示，采取行动刻不容缓：全球每年流失近1亿公顷健康土地，过去30年中超过70%的土地面积经历了干旱化加剧，削弱了地球养活不断增长人口的能力。从现在到2030年，全球每天需要10亿美元来实现土地恢复目标并防治荒漠化和干旱——这笔钱仅为流向“有害激励与投资”的零头。 CRIC23 将在巴拿马城巴拿马会展中心举行。缔约方将审查进展，并提出防止和扭转土地退化、到2030年增强抗旱韧性的建议。此外，CRIC23 还将讨论2030年后的战略框架，并汇聚包括妇女、青年、土著人民和当地社区在内的关键利益相关方。 CRIC23 的标志灵感来自鸽子花（Peristeria elata），即巴拿马的国花。在其中心，一只飞翔的白鸽轮廓跃然呈现——这是和平与团结的普世象征。如今，这种娇嫩的花朵在其自然栖息地中日益受到荒漠化的威胁，凸显了保护生物多样性和恢复土壤的紧迫性。CRIC23 会徽进一步强调了巴拿马的“自然承诺”，将该国在土地、气候和生物多样性方面的承诺统一于一个愿景之下。该标志也致敬了巴拿马的自然与文化遗产，体现了该国建设一个具有韧性、可持续、与自然和谐共处未来的决心。 编辑须知 持有正式记者证件的媒体代表受邀参加并报道 CRIC23 及相关活动。 CRIC23 每日要点将由 IISD《地球谈判简报》提供。 边会日程请见：https://www.unccd.int/cric23/side-events 关于 CRIC23 的视觉素材和 UNCCD 数据仪表盘请见：https://trello.com/b/zq0kxtkK/unccd-cric23-panama-2025 媒体代表的在线注册将于2025年9月15日起开放，请访问：https://indico.un.org/e/unccd-cric2310 （点击“Media Registration”）。 注册需提交以下文件： 一张近期护照尺寸照片； 有效记者证； 护照复印件（照片页和签名页，适用于外国记者）或身份证（适用于本地申请者）； 由编辑部主任、媒体机构或出版商出具的正式抬头推荐信。 自由记者必须提交由媒体机构出具的委派函，确认其被指派报道本次会议。 逾期未注册者，可在会议现场的认证与注册中心（地址：Panama Convention Center, Calle General Juan D. Perón, Amador, Panama City）在官方注册时间内办理注册。 已在线注册的记者，凭有效记者证和身份证件，可在巴拿马会展中心领取证件。 有关签证申请规定及新闻设备携带入境巴拿马的更多信息，请参阅：https://es.tourismpanama.com/planea-tus-vacaciones/requisitos-de-viaje/ 有关媒体认证或报道活动的咨询，请联系：press@unccd.int 会议场地将提供专门的媒体与新闻工作区。 关于公约和 CRIC23 的更多信息和媒体更新，请访问 UNCCD 官网：https://www.unccd.int/cric23 关于 UNCCD 《联合国防治荒漠化公约》（UNCCD）是全球土地的共同愿景与声音。我们联合各国政府、科学家、政策制定者、私营部门和社区，共同推动全球行动，恢复和管理地球土地，以实现人类与地球的可持续发展。UNCCD 不仅仅是一份由197个缔约方签署的国际条约，更是减缓当今土地退化影响、推进未来土地治理的多边承诺，旨在为所有人公平和包容地提供食物、水、住所和经济机会。 

Land degradation is a global crisis—one that is reshaping landscapes, livelihoods and futures. Each year, vast areas of productive lands are lost, affecting nearly half of humanity and costing the global economy an estimated US$878 billion. In Latin America, over 20 per cent of arable land is already degraded due to deforestation, overgrazing and other types of unsustainable land use. At the heart of the UNCCD is the belief that land is not only a natural resource—it is a source of life, identity and resilience. But while policies and data help define the challenge, it is the stories from the ground that bring its true scale and urgency into focus. Here is where ReVerde plays a crucial role. The documentary-style television programme gives voice to the people behind the headlines—those living with and responding to the impacts of land degradation. From Indigenous communities to small-scale farmers, from urban collectives to rural cooperatives, the programme captures the diverse efforts underway to restore ecosystems, protect local resources and create sustainable alternatives. Aligned with the UNCCD’s vision for sustainable land stewardship, ReVerde explores both the challenges and the solutions. It highlights community-led restoration, the importance of ancestral knowledge and the risks posed by unregulated development. Ahead of this year's Desertification and Drought Day on 17 June 2025, hosted in Bogotá, Colombia, with the theme— “Restore the Land. Unlock the Opportunities.”— ReVerde stories remind us that restoration is not an abstract goal, but a daily effort being led by communities on the ground. The benefits are clear: land restoration can reverse more than US$1 trillion in agricultural productivity losses, strengthen food security for over a billion people and create millions of sustainable jobs. But to meet global targets, a significant funding gap—currently US$278 billion per year—must be closed. In telling the stories of land and those who care for it, ReVerde does more than inform—it inspires, builds understanding, sparks dialogue  and brings us closer to a future where land is restored, protected and valued for generations to come. In its next chapter, ReVerde turns its lens to the global observance of Desertification and Drought Day—continuing its mission to spotlight the people and places at the heart of our planet’s most pressing challenges. 

When the flow of a tropical island nation’s most important river varies by 80 per cent between the dry and wet seasons, something is amiss. In a conserved watershed, the volume of water only fluctuates by 20 per cent, pointing to the role of healthy lands in trapping and slowly releasing moisture as opposed to having water run off in a flash. Such is the predicament of the Northern Yaque river in the Dominican Republic, a mountainous Caribbean country of 10.5 million. Today, water pressure on the river is around 96 per cent, meaning that virtually all the water that the river can be counted on to carry permanently is committed to use by a growing urban population, plantations, and industries. But change, with both short- and long-term gains, is underway.For the past 15 years, dedicated partnerships convening the civil society, public, and private sectors have come up with sustainable land and water management strategies that work for everybody — smallholders, utilities providers and financiers — creating a blueprint from which others can draw inspiration.Experts working to rehabilitate the Northern Yaque watershed, which covers 14.6 per cent of the country, talked us through their process and the success factors in improving the water security of more than 1,8 million people, while building drought resilience in the face of climate change. Partnering with water users The civil society-led Plan for the Development of the Northern Yaque Watershed, or Plan Yaque, convenes 32 civil society and governmental institutions to reforest water catchment areas, train farmers in sustainable land and water management, and help communities treat wastewater before it is released into the river. In turn, Plan Yaque is a technical advisor and a key project implementer of the Northern Yaque Water Fund, a financial and governance mechanism launched in 2015 to raise and administer funds for water security in the watershed. The Fund, which is one of two such structures in the Dominican Republic, brings together 27 partners, including the Ministry of Environment, universities, and the water utility company of the country’s second largest city, Santiago. Additionally, it involves major users like manufacturing companies and banana, rice, and tobacco producer associations —crucial since agriculture accounts for an estimated 85 per cent of water consumption in the area. “The Water Fund is built on the notion that no single stakeholder can do it alone,” says executive director of the Water Fund Walkiria Estévez, who notes that the Dominican Republic is one of the most water stressed countries in the world.Ensuring financial sustainabilityPrivate sector partners contribute economically to the Fund, while each of the customers of the water utility company of Santiago contributes a small amount. The money is then invested in different portfolios and 75 per cent of the profits are used in support of nature-based solutions for water security. The rest is channeled back into the Fund to grow it. But how did the fund get the private sector on board in the first place?“We don’t speak of donations, but of investments,” says Estévez. “The private sector is investing to secure a crucial input —water— for their operations now and in the future. Ultimately, it is about having users take responsibility for managing a vital resource sustainably.”Upholding accountabilityFor Estévez, measuring results, financial accountability, and transparency have been central to gaining and maintaining the trust of partners, as has been starting with low-investment, high-impact interventions that are based on science.“We did not wait for the trust fund to reach a substantial size to start funding projects and presenting results. That was vital to prove that our model worked and to keep the momentum,” she says. However, she notes that continuing to grow the fund is important to bring successful strategies to scale and to support new ones. For example, upcoming trainings to help lowland farmers conserve soils and improve water use efficiency, which currently stands at less than 30 per cent, according to technical project coordinator Alberto Lizardo.Artificial wetland in the Dominican RepublicDeploying nature-based solutionsOne of the star interventions in the watershed are artificial wetlands, treatment systems that use natural processes involving wetland vegetation, soils, and their associated microbial diversity to improve water quality. Plan Yaque is the NGO behind the development and implementation of these low-tech, low-maintenance systems, which have proved to be a transformative solution for rural communities. They have so far built 34 of them. The wastewater from the septic tanks at homes and schools is channeled to the constructed wetland, where microorganisms, aquatic plants, and sunlight remove more than 90 per cent of the pollutants, before the water is released into the river. Water pollution is, alongside flow reduction, one of the two main issues jeopardizing water security in the basin.“The nature-based system works wonderfully and does not need inputs or maintenance, beyond removing the sewage sludge every three months, which communities do themselves” says founder and executive director of Plan Yaque Humberto Checo, one of the leading figures in the watershed restoration and management movement in the country. Working in micro-watershedsFor Checo, from Plan Yaque, a key to their success is focusing each intervention in selected territories drained by streams, or micro-watersheds, 52 tesserae that collectively make up the river Yaque basin. The NGO conducted a diagnosis of the 19 micro-watersheds in the upper basin and prioritized those with both high-water production and imminent threat from the expansion of the agricultural frontier, which leads to deforestation and the loss of the natural systems that maintain an adequate water flow. Then, they identified key farms or producer associations and set out to demonstrate why shifting from slash-and-burn agriculture to self-sustaining forestry and agroforestry systems was in their best interest.Changing mindsets “Changing mindsets to transform land management one family at a time is the most important part of the whole strategy, and our most important learning,” says Checo.Short cycle crops like corn, sweet potatoes, and yuca mean that farmers must toil incessantly into their old age to make a living, he says, whereas planting macadamia nut trees, orchards, and even coffee ensures a good source of future income with minimal effort while regenerating the soil and protecting water catchment areas. Land use planning across the farm is part of the approach.Parched, denuded hills of the farmers who continued with business as usual 15 years ago now stand next to the stunningly verdant slopes of those who opted to shift to more sustainable agricultural practices, reviving the landscape and building economic security for present and future generations along the way. These type of efforts largely account for the rise of the Dominican Republic as a global land restoration hotspot.“Sustainability lies in this newly gained awareness of the need to care, together, for the natural systems that sustain us,” says Estévez of the Water Fund. This is what we ultimately strive for.”Bringing what works to scalePlan Yaque has also pioneered a payment for ecosystem services scheme (PES) with support from hydropower and water providers, and the country recently passed its first law on PES. The next challenge, says Checo, is bringing this and other internationally lauded, science-based initiatives to micro-watersheds across the country.“After decades of experience in watershed restoration and protection, we have evidence on what works,” says Checo. “With the right policies and investments, we could bring this expertise to scale while supporting the next generation of landscape professionals.”