World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

N Munal Meitei *

Drought looming : The condition of Paddy field in Thoubal district in July 2012

In December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly declared June 17 as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. It acknowledged that desertification and drought are the challenging global problems because they affect all regions of the world. This day is a unique occasion to remind everybody that desertification can be effectively tackled, that solutions are possible, and that key tools to this aim lay in strengthened community participation and co-operation at all levels.

From the food we eat, to the clothes we wear and the houses we live – it all stems from land resources. In order to "leave no one behind" as proclaimed in the new Sustainable Development Goals, achieving land degradation neutrality needs to be in the forefront to meet our requirements and develop sustainability.

The theme for this year is "Inclusive cooperation for achieving Land Degradation Neutrality" and slogan is "Protect Earth. Restore Land. Engage People". Beijing the capital of China will be the host.. During the celebrations, China will launch the 'One Belt and One Road' Joint Action to Combat Desertification Initiative together with interested countries and stakeholders.

Desertification is the result of a cycle of land degradation, turning once fertile soils into sterile land as a consequence of over-exploitation by intensive farming, forest exploitation for fuel and timber, and overgrazing. Thus, desertification does not refer specifically to desert areas, nor to arid lands but to the consequences of over-use of the Earth's resources. So desertification also refer to land degradation of a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. Therefore desertification is a significant global ecological and environmental problem.

Desertification is a global phenomenon, affecting the livelihoods of 900 million people across the five continents and representing a third of worldwide threats to biodiversity. Drylands occupy approximately 40–41% of Earth's land area and are home to more than 2 billion people. It has been estimated that some 10–20% of drylands are already degraded, the total area affected by desertification being between 6 and 12 million sq. km that about 1–6% of the inhabitants of drylands live in desertified areas, and that a billion people are under threat from further desertification.

The immediate cause desertificationis the loss of vegetation. This is also driven by a number of factors, alone or in combination, such as drought, climatic shifts, hi tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation for fuel or construction materials.

Vegetation plays a major role in determining the biological composition of the soil. Studies have shown that, in many environments, the rate of erosion and runoff decreases exponentially with increased vegetation cover. Unprotected, dry soil surfaces blow away with the wind or are washed away by flash floods, leaving infertile lower soil layers that bake in the sun and become an unproductive hardpan. At least 90% of the inhabitants of drylands live in developing nations, where they also suffer from poor economic and social conditions.

This situation is exacerbated by land degradation because of the reduction in productivity, the precariousness of living conditions and the difficulty of access to resources and opportunities. Human activities directly trigger exacerbating desertifica- tion with the factors such as over farming, excessive irrigation, deforestation, and erosion adversely impact the ability of the land to capture and hold water.

Despite the mitigation of desertification, we need to know the existingdrylands contain a great variety of biodiversity. Many species and habitats found in drylands are not present in more humid ecosystems.

Their biodiversity is also central to sustainable development and to the livelihoods of their inhabitants, many of whom are poor. For this reason the importance of biodiversity to poverty reduction and economic development may be greater in drylands than in many other ecosystems.

Drylands also contribute a number of high-value products of global economic importance, at least 30% of the world's cultivated plants and many livestock breeds originate in drylands. They therefore constitute an important genetic reservoir that is becoming increasingly valuable for climate change adaptation. Therefore, their biodiversity plays an important role in the global fight against climate change, poverty and desertification.

Desertification often causes rural lands to become unable to support the same sized populations that previously lived there. This results in mass migrations out of rural areas and into urban areas. These migrations into the cities often cause large numbers of unemployed people, who end up living in slums.

Techniques exist for reversing the effects of desertification; however, there are numerous barriers to their implementation. One of these is that the costs of adopting sustainable agricultural practices sometimes exceed the benefits for individual farmers, even while they are socially and environmentally beneficial. Another issue is a lack of political will, and lack of funding to support land reclamation and anti-desertification programs.

Reforestation gets the best solution of desertification. Enriching of the soil and restoration of its fertility is often done by plants. Of these, the Leguminous plants which extract nitrogen from the air and fixes it in the soil, and food crops/tree grains, barley, beans and dates are the most important.

Fixating the soil is often done through the use of shelter belts, woodlots and windbreaks. Windbreaks are made from trees and bushes and are used to reduce soil erosion and evapotrans-piration. Some soils (for example, clay), due to lack of water can become consolidated rather than porous (as in the case of sandy soils). Some techniques as zaï or tillage are then used to still allow the planting of crops.

Another technique that is useful is contour trenching. The trenches are made parallel to the height lines of the landscape, preventing the water from flowing within the trenches and causing erosion. Stone walls are placed around the trenches to prevent the trenches from closing up again. Sand fences can also be used to control drifting of soil and sand erosion.

Drought or lack of rainfall is another wooing world problem. A drought is a period of below-average precipitation in a given region; resulting in prolonged shortages in its water supply, whether atmospheric, surface water or ground water. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region and harm to the local economy. Periods of heat can significantly worsen drought conditions by hastening evaporation of water vapour.

Activities resulting in global climate change are expected to trigger droughts. It impacts on agriculture throughout the world, and especially in the developing nations. Drought can also reduce water quality. Strategies for drought protection, mitigation or relief may include:dams, cloud seeding, desalination, drought monitoring, land use, outdoor water-use restriction, rainwater harvesting and recycling of water.

As we know, cutting of trees means paving the way on desertification. In Manipur the number of trees that we are cutting daily is not in tunes of thousands but in hundreds of thousands.

While jhooming is the greatest problem, maximum of the trees are also cut for earning livelihood for many of the poor hill peoples. As per the Indian State Forest Report 2015, Manipur is only the state the North-East with increase in forest area for 4 sq.km.

The total increases in the state were 115 sq.km but challengingly, 111 sq.km of forest land were reduced in Tamenglong district alone due to Jhoom and forest fire. The total area of forest lost in the state is about 400 sq.km annually.

But due to some of the Govt. afforestation schemes, we could make up something to breathe. Now selling of firewood has become a big business.

The mushrooming brick kilns in the state are mainly depending on the firewood as for lignite or coal, transportation and cost is a factor. Most of the small scale industries in the state such as blacksmith, goldsmith, hotels and dhobi depend on charcoals that are produced by uprooting the trees mostly of coppicing species. Therefore, the significance of observing this day will be fulfilled only when we stop the indiscriminate cutting of trees and instead planting more and more trees in all the available lands for the sack of future.