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Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - Web posted at 9:14:38 am GMT Namibia host to key UN summit on desertificationMAGGI BARNARDSOLUTIONS for desertification can no longer be postponed, says Hama Arba Diallo, Executive Secretary of the the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Speaking at the opening in Windhoek yesterday of the African Regional Conference to review UNCCD, Diallo said the poor were both the victims and agents of environmental damage. "A large and growing population struggling to survive in a limited and fragile environment has resulted in the over-utilisation of available natural resources," he said. Representatives of 46 of Africa's 53 countries are in Windhoek this week to review progress made since the implementation of UNCCD. All 53 countries on the continent have ratified the convention. In Africa the United Nations Environmental Programme has classified 70 million hectares as strongly degraded. Diallo said because of a lack of alternative livelihoods, the over-utilisation of resources led to further poverty and environmental degradation. Food production in Africa is predicted to decline drastically. The highest proportion of people living in extreme poverty come from sub-Saharan Africa. He called the UNCCD the best instrument to eradicate rural poverty, which is widespread in the drylands of the world, particularly in Africa. One of the main focuses of the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held later this year in Johannesburg will be the critical link between poverty and environmental degradation. Peter Iilonga, Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, said Namibians were not strangers to desertification and land degradation "living as we do in a dry country, with an unpredictable and variable rainfall where most people still rely directly on natural resources". He said Namibia had made remarkable progress in the past 12 years after inheriting a system of management of natural resources "which was profoundly and immorally inequitable and denied the majority of people access and benefits from the resources of the country". One of the key elements of the UN convention is a participatory process that involves civil society. Shirley Bethune, National Co-ordinator of the Namibian Programme to Combat Desertification (Napcod), said at a press conference in Windhoek last week that the main focus of Namibia's programmes was community participation. "We hope that other countries could perhaps learn from us," Bethune said. Local communities will share their experiences in combating desertification at the conference on Thursday. In its second national report, Namibia included as one of its challenges the lack of enduring change in the way people use and manage natural resources. Namibia ratified the convention in 1997. |
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