Estimates suggest that over 2 billion of the world’s people, who depend on the land for most of their needs, live in areas affected by desertification. This degradation of the land is closely linked with poverty, famine, armed conflicts and recurrent drought.
To promote awareness of the need to combat desertification and its devastating consequences like drought, the General Assembly, in 1994, proclaimed 17th June as World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. This date marks the anniversary of the adoption of the UN’s Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The convention came into force on 26th December 1996.
Various activities are being under taken today as part of the campaign to tackle global environmental deterioration at the local and national levels in most of the 167 countries that are Parties to UNCCD, involving governmental and non-governmental organizations, the media, and other interested stakeholders.
The UN Convention on CCD provides a framework for collaborative action against environmental degradation and acute poverty in the marginalized dry lands. A legally binding instrument, the Convention calls for the formulation of National Action Plans and the setting up of national desertification funds.
Pakistan signed the convention on October 10, 1994 and ratified it on February 24, 1997. It is in the process of finalizing its national action plan (NAP) to fight desertification that affects approximately 45 million hectares of its land resources. First report of the plan was submitted in the year 2000 which, briefly highlights the activities and the actions, to be undertaken to address issues and concerns of desertification /land degradation in general and the specific measures to be adopted under the convention. Since then the government could not focus on efforts to prevent the continuous land degradation in the country.
Now Pakistan is threatened with desertification and degradation of land. About 68 million hactares of land area lies in fragile regions. The country has highly complex and diversified agro-ecological and socio-economic set-up. One fourth of the country’s land area, which is suitable for intensive agriculture, is seriously subjected to threats of wind and water erosion and twin menace of water logging and salinity.
Overgrazing has brought down the productivity of rangelands to as little as 15-40 per cent of their potential. The arid coastal strips and mangrove areas are under increased environmental stress from reduced fresh water flows, sewage and industrial pollution and over exploitation of other natural resources. Substantial decline in floodwater in Sindh has led to rapid sea intrusion in the delta region, raising salinity levels in underground water and spurring cattle migration to irrigated areas. In NWFP and Balochistan, the permanent damage includes dwindling vegetation cover, almost to the point of disappearing altogether in the latter province. Excessive depletion of underground water resources has occurred and will not be compensated without strong efforts for conservation, as well as immediate change in water use practices.
From its independence in 1947 to the recent past, Pakistan has been blessed with an efficient irrigation system and plenty of water from the rivers that flow through it. Up till quite recently, the supply of the water was enough to meet the demand of all the end users but the rapid growth in population started putting unprecedented pressure on the irrigation system. The negligence and colossal mismanagement of water resources of the country resulted in desertification of otherwise fertile agricultural lands.
Already, the two droughts in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 have stretched the coping abilities of the existing systems to the limit and it has barely been able to check the situation from becoming a catastrophe. The drought of last year wreaked havoc in more than half of the districts of the country, especially impacting rain-fed and range-land areas.
As agreed by the countries, which are parties to the Convention considerable efforts and significant achievements have been made by certain countries for controlling desertification. Unfortunately, in Pakistan land degradation has been worsening for absence of effective policy and reluctance in the implementation of certain laws, along with lack of interest on the part of concerned authorities. In this scenario the National Action Programme to Combat Desertification will have to be revised with the consultation and participation of all stakeholders. Although irrigated areas had been the focus of the government policies and programmes, non-irrigated areas in arid region have also figured high in the government plans and priorities for sustainable development and management.
Activities like soil and water conservation, dry land afforestation and rehabilitation of degraded rangelands and saline areas have been part of the programmes of line agencies since independence. However the activities, unfortunately, were limited to official documents only and it lacked community participation perspectives and imperatives, which is the cause of failure of all such activities.
Moreover the initial momentum unleashed during process of formulation of National Action Plan for combating desertification and drought has not been carried through to the implementation stage as yet.
There will be neither sustainable development, nor environmental protection, nor improvement in the climate for future generation, nor preservation of the bio-diversity if we do not protect the earth from desertification and its political, economic and social consequences. In this undertaking government, NGOs, business community and private citizens of the respective regions of the world will have to be partners if they are to combat desertification and drought. Concrete efforts to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development, as well as to increase awareness worldwide of the problems of the desertification and of the solutions, can only help us make the difference for the people living in the dry lands.