It Is Everybody's Business

Private sector is vital to restore land and sustain life

- Ibrahim Thiaw

WE TAKE for granted the abundance of productive land, assuming that damaged land will heal itself. Left alone for a very long time, it would. Eventually. But that’s not our reality.

Four recent independent assessments show that degraded land is not recovering fast enough and that the drivers and impacts are no longer limited to the locals. They are global. That puts the onus of restoration on everyone who rightfully consumes that which is not produced locally. The private sector must be engaged as governments cannot do it alone. Nor should communities have to pick up their slack.

The rising global momentum and demand for environmental action makes this an ideal moment to change how we plan and manage land. The benefits of doing so are far-reaching and global.

To understand my claim, let me explain first what the science is telling us.

Over 1.3 billion people in the world are directly affected by land degradation, but more than 3.2 billion are impacted indirectly. That is nearly half of the global population, and well over the 2 billion people who live in the world’s dryland areas. Drylands were the primary target of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) when it was negotiated 25 years ago. These lands face the greatest risk of degradation (referred to as desertification) compared to other types of land systems.