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At its thirty-second session, the General Assembly, by paragraph 13 of its resolution 32/172 of 19 December 1977, invited the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to have prepared, by a small group of high-level specialists in the international financing of projects and programmes, a study of additional measures and means of financing for the implementation of the…

The United Nations Conference on Desertification was the first time the nations of the world turned their concerted attention to a comprehensive plan to halt and reverse desertification. The global annual loss to desertification is in the order of 60,000 km. 2 It is man's action that degrades the land by misuse as he seeks to wrest a living from fragile ecosystems. A change to a more arid…

Recalling its resolution 3337 (XXIX) of 17 December 1974, in which it decided to convene the United Nations Conference on Desertification. Endorses in principle the creation of a special account within the United Nations for implementing the Plan of Action. Calls upon all countries, in particular developed countries, as well as multirateral financial institutions and non…

Agenda item 62: United Nations Environment Programme. One of the goals concerned the education and training of environmental specialists, the importance and urgency of which had been repeatedly stressed. While the actions taken by UNEP in that area were steps in the right direction, they were still inadequate, bearing in mind the real needs of the developing countries. …

More than one-third of the earth's land area is arid. Much of it has become desert since the dawn of civilization, and many vulnerable areas are even now being turned into desert because of man's actions. This process has intensified during recent decades. The Sahelian drought of 1968-1973 and its tragic effect on the peoples of that region drew world attention to chronic problems of human…

The explanatory note gives the criteria used for the different desertification classes distinguished on the accompanying maps. The climate-aridity index maps was composed from calculations of net radiation from about 3,600 stations, using the Budyko ratio as criteria. An experimental world scheme of aridity and drought probability was compiled by Kovda and explained in a table giving 14 classes…