By AFP - Agence France Presse
Unsustainable agriculture and forest loss lead the Earth to the 'precipice': UN.
By Kelly MACNAMARA
Unsustainable agriculture and deforestation are threatening the planet's ability to sustain human societies, the UN warned on Sunday, on the eve of international negotiations on land degradation and desertification.
Forest loss and degraded soils are reducing resilience to climate change and biodiversity loss, creating negative feedback loops and leading the world to a dangerous “precipice,” scientists said in a report released jointly with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
This comes as some 200 nations are due to gather in Saudi Arabia for a UN summit on desertification on Monday, tasked with expanding restoration efforts to reclaim 1.5 billion hectares of degraded land this decade.
The meeting is expected to be the largest land conference to date and comes on the heels of a series of difficult UN negotiations on climate, biodiversity, and plastics.
“If we do not recognize the central role of land and take appropriate action, the consequences will ripple through all aspects of life and into the future, intensifying the difficulties for future generations,” said UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw.
The new report highlights the heavy burden that agriculture represents for the planet and calls for a course correction.
Agriculture is linked to 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, 80% of deforestation, and 70% of freshwater use.
“The expansion of agricultural land may feed more people in the short term, but it may accelerate soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and therefore food insecurity in the long term,” said Thiaw and Johan Rockstrom from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in the foreword.
In addition to causing forest loss, industrialized agriculture uses huge quantities of chemicals in fertilizers and pesticides that create dead zones in waterways, damage biodiversity, and increase emissions of planet-warming gases.
Poor water management also depletes freshwater resources.
Based on 350 research sources, the report uses the concept of planetary boundaries, the “safe operating space,” to keep the world habitable for most species.
“The purpose of the planetary boundaries framework is to provide a measure for achieving human well-being within the ecological limits of the Earth,” said Rockstrom.
“We are at a precipice and need to decide whether to step back and take transformative action or continue on a path of irreversible environmental change,” he adds.
Six out of nine of these limits - climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, synthetic chemicals including plastics, freshwater depletion, and nitrogen use - are already in the red.
Two of the remaining three - ocean acidification and the concentration of particulate and dust pollution in the atmosphere - are at the limit, with only ozone depletion comfortably within safe limits.
The report warned of accelerating feedback loops.
Deforestation, for example, causes carbon emissions that worsen climate change, but the loss of forests also reduces the ecosystem's ability to recycle water and cope with drought, causing more trees to die.
Solutions include fighting corruption, improving water management, and reforming agriculture.
The report also recommended realigning hundreds of billions of dollars in harmful or inefficient agricultural subsidies with more sustainable farming practices.
According to data shared with the UNCCD by governments, land degradation affects an area of 1.5 billion hectares - almost the size of Russia. And this area is increasing by around 100 million hectares every year.
In an interview with AFP, Thiaw said that “global security is really at stake,” as the loss of forests and impoverished soils are causing hunger, conflict, and migration.
Saudi Arabia's high oil production routinely draws the ire of climate activists and accusations of efforts to undermine progress at other UN environmental meetings.
But its exposure to desertification gives Riyadh a greater stake in a positive outcome at the 12-day talks.
The country, which is home to one of the world's largest deserts, aims to restore 40 million hectares of degraded land, Deputy Environment Minister Osama Faqeeha told AFP without specifying a timetable.
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