By Shalini Dhyani on 20 September 2019.
Beyond celebrating 25 years of our convention, we need to take a moment to be introspective and ask, have we turned the tide on land degradation? A paradigm shift must take place or change will never happen.
– Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD Executive Secretary
After 15 days of marathon discussions on 
every aspect of reducing deforestation and degradation risks in light of climate change and drought-proofing the world, UNCCD COP 14 ended in New Delhi, India last week. The drought was the centre stage of COP 14 due to its massive impact on food security of millions dwelling across drought-affected areas. Understanding and addressing the crucial concern on increasing drought risk for the entire world, especially for many African and Asian countries will be quite a challenge. Let me also bring the context of recently launched (Aug 8) IPCC special report on Climate Change and Land. The report discusses the ugly outcomes of increasing human-induced pressure on ecosystems. A comprehensive climate assessment report also called as AR6 (Assessment Report) is due in 2021. This also brings huge concern on climate change, and its massive impact on ecosystems, biodiversity and people, and UNCCD COP was also not unaffected from it. COP discussion was focused on achieving land degradation neutrality and the possibility of attaining it by the middle of this century to reduce the adverse impacts, which was also of focus in the released UNEP report on Land Restoration for achieving UN SDGs. The recently released report on Soil Organic Carbon is also of much importance to countries in South Asia and other regions to understand the depleting Soil Carbon that will further accelerate the risks to agriculture and food security.
India as host for COP 14 promised to raise the target of restoring degraded land to 26 million hectares. Similar targets have to be realised by other south Asian countries to adapt to climate risks and reduce the challenges for our future. This will be important and not miss that India will also host the centre for South-South cooperation in addressing land degradation, and sharing knowledge, technology and capacity building.
Plastic waste has also affected our lands and has rendered them unfit for cultivation. The risk is looming large and has emerged as the biggest threat to our ecosystems in Anthropocene after climate change. Calculating our plastic footprint and reducing our impact on resources and ecosystems will be another vital aspect to minimise degradation and improving conditions. IUCN came out with this innovative idea on an extensive overview of all the existing plastic footprint methodologies after enhanced applicability of carbon and water footprints.
UNCCD COP in Delhi also touched upon the funding mechanisms and innovative methods for drought mitigation. Funding drought mitigation so far has been considered the biggest elephant, and we usually ignore this fact in our discussions. Engagement of the private sector, targeting digital payments of remittances, and necessary facilities like water and sanitation were thought as potential contributions to drought preparedness and mitigation. A mechanism to review drought-affected and monitor the conditions at minimal regular intervals is undoubtedly going to help. CSR funds of corporates can be of massive help in drought-proofing south Asia. The Drought toolbox launched during COP 14 could be of much help to reach out to larger stakeholder groups for drought-proofing and to increase their preparedness.
Before the conclusion of the COP, New Delhi declaration was brought out with promises that bring restoration, biodiversity and climate change all in the centre stage. All of these are interlinked and will be crucial to achieve and localise SDGs, 2015 and ensure broader partnerships for fulfilling Paris COP, 2015 promises as well. India has the presidency of the convention till 2021, and 197 signatory countries have to ratify it as well.
Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) will be pertinent under the Bonn Challenge, and south Asia should have key priority to FLR for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) has also been concerned with increasing threat to ecosystems across south Asia under its 2017–2020 agenda, where this region has got special attention. South Asia has undergone massive loss due to desertification, degradation, deforestation, salinity ingress, groundwater depletion, chemical-intensive agriculture, and is globally the most disaster-prone area. The efforts to address these issues were so far scattered, though, a lot of success stories are there on the ground, but scaling up and scaling out has been a serious concern so far.
There will be a need for a systematic understanding of the level of threats our different ecosystems, agro-climatic zones are facing. So far, there have been no efforts to have a comprehensive assessment for evaluating the threat to the entire ecosystem under the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems. There is a growing concern on the need to assess ecosystem threat as defined by IUCN Red List of Ecosystems after having an extensive exploratory understanding, on threatened species, following IUCN Red List of species, that has been one of the most sought out inventories across the planet in prioritisation and decision making for species conservation. This should be a priority by 2020 so that we have a better undertaking at ecosystem and landscape level on drivers, scenarios that might emerge due to business as usual approach.
Now coming to the second relevant aspect of understanding and addressing the risks, IUCN CEM has been endorsing and promoting NbS (Nature-based Solutions) at various levels for FLR, EcoDRR (Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction), EbA (Ecosystem-based Adaptation), which holds the key. Recently, there has been a huge global concern for using and integrating NbS as a core component to achieving INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) targets, and IUCN has also supported it. NbS if appropriately understood and well implemented can be of enormous benefit globally to improve carbon sinks, improve livelihood, reduce and eradicate poverty and also address landscape restoration. NbS has already been a vital element for achieving Bonn Challenge targets.
Near Term Actions are needed to be realised for south Asia to reduce land degradation, desertification, habitat and biodiversity loss while not jeopardising the food, energy and water security concerns.
Shalini Dhyani, PhD, is Scientist with CSIR – National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur, India. Shalini is also Regional Chair of IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management South Asia.
Disclaimer: Views expressed here are her own and have nothing to do with the organisations she is affiliated.