Third Conference of Parties to the UN Desertification
Convention Held in Recife, Brazil
Soil Conservation Again on the Agenda of
the UN
Bremerhaven, Germany, 12 November 1999. On 15-26
November 1999, the Third Conference of the Parties to the Desertification Convention convenes
in Recife, Brazil, with a large number of heads of government
and ministers from all over the world attending. The urgent need
for action has been evidenced again by a recent series of catastrophic
landslides, mud avalanches and harvest losses, which have been
caused, in most cases, by the increasing global problem of soil
depletion.
The United Nations conference in Recife will focus on national
reports on how the convention objectives have been implemented
in individual countries. Questions to be dealt with include the
effectiveness of national action programs of affected countries
and the technical and financial support by the industrialized
countries. The Recife conference will focus on Africa, which
suffers most from soil depletion. The assessment of the experiences
in other regions is scheduled for the next years. These assessment
processes will enable the parties to the Convention to decide
whether current anti-desertification programs are sufficient
and whether the situation of the people in affected areas will
improve in the medium term.
Further items on the agenda include organizational and financial
matters. The Sub-Committee on Science and Technology will debate,
among others, whether the indicators for evaluating the effectiveness
of current measures have proven successful after having been
tested in some member countries.
In the view of the Council, soil conservation is of crucial importance
for sustainable development. The global destruction of soils
contributes to global warming and to the increasing loss of biological
diversity. Soil degradation also threatens global food production.
Today, more than 250 million people are directly affected by
soil depletion all over the world, particularly in arid regions.
Since the Desertification Convention covers only a part of the
entire problem of global soil depletion, the Council calls upon
governments to negotiate a general "Global Convention on
the Protection of the soils" which should cover all forms
of soil depletion.
The "United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification,
Particularly in Africa" (UNCCD)
aims at the control of soil depletion and poverty in arid areas.
Along with the conventions on climate change and biological diversity,
the UNCCD is one of the three major agreements have been negotiated
in the course of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
The UNCCD entered into force in 1996. The first and second Conferences
of the Parties were held in 1997 and 1998.
The WBGU - advisory body on global change for policymakers
The WBGU
was established by the German Federal Government in early 1992
as an independent advisory council. The background to this move
was the growing concern for preserving the natural resource basis
on which humankind's life and social development depends, and
the recognition that international action is needed more and
more urgently. The Council produces Annual Reports describing
global environmental trends and the problems these generate for
human societies. The reports give special consideration to the
international agreements and the Agenda for the 21st century
dealt with at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. They also
make specific recommendations relating to research programs and
to action in the field of environmental policy. The following
reports have appeared so far in the "World in Transition"
series: Basic Structure of People-Environment Relations (1993),
The Threat to Soils (1994), Ways Towards Global Environmental
Solutions (1995), The Research Challenge (1996) and Sustainable
Management of Freshwater Resources. The Council also prepared
special reports on the occasion of the climate summits of Berlin
(1995) and Kyoto (1997 and 1998).
Please direct your queries to the WBGU secretariat
Tel. +49 471 4831 723 or to Prof.
Dr. Beese +49 551 39 9765 or 3502. Press releases and reports
can be downloaded at http://www.wbgu.de
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