his year’s World Environment Day is focusing on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the global host this year because of their Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative. The triple planetary crisis comprises climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution; together they are wreaking havoc on the world’s ecosystems. This onslaught has resulted in the degradation of billions of hectares of land, impacting nearly half of the global population and endangering half of the global gross domestic product. Rural communities, small-scale farmers and the most impoverished individuals bear the brunt of these consequences. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions, according to The World Counts.

Climate onsets such as drought, sea level rise, flooding and hurricanes are affecting soil quality and causing land degradation. Intensive agricultural activities and deforestation aggravate the situation further. These lead to the transformation of fertile land into desert, thereby detrimentally impacting food production, livelihoods and the generation of various ecosystem goods and services. Land degradation has sped up notably in the 20th and 21st Centuries. It is driven by the compounding pressures of agricultural and livestock activities including over-cultivation, overgrazing and forest conversion, urban expansion, deforestation and severe weather events like droughts and coastal surges, which result in land salinisation. The interplay of social and environmental processes is straining the world’s arable lands and pastures crucial for supplying food, water and clean air. Land degradation and desertification can impact human health through intricate channels. As land degrades and deserts encroach in certain regions, food production diminishes, water sources diminish and populations are compelled to relocate to more habitable areas.

According to UNCCD, 1.2 billion people are exposed to land degradation whereas 1.84 billion people are living in drought-affected lands.

According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, between 2015 and 2019 a minimum of 100 million hectares of fertile and productive land underwent degradation annually, posing significant challenges to global food and water security. This depletion equates to double the area of Greenland and directly affects the livelihoods of approximately 1.3 billion individuals who face direct exposure to land degradation. Currently, 15.5 percent (1.52 billion hectares) of the reported land is degraded, with an increase of 4 percent in four years. As of 2019, Pakistan’s total degraded area is 2.81 million hectares.

Most of the degraded land is in Eastern Asia and Southeastern Asia i.e., 21.62 percent; followed by Latin America and Caribbean 15.67 percent; North America and Europe 10.15 percent; Oceana 8.08 percent; and Sub-Saharan Africa 6.7 percent. Globally, 50.08 percent of the area is affected by drought which from 2016 to 2019 made up 3.28 billion hectares of land. These statistics are alarming. If business as usual continues, the world should expect more frequent and intense droughts and more desertification and land degradation.

Land degradation, desertification and droughts pose serious health impacts for humans. According to UNCCD, 1.2 billion people are exposed to land degradation whereas 1.84 billion people are living in drought affected lands. There are looming threats of malnutrition from food insecurity and water scarcity, respiratory diseases due to atmospheric dust caused by wind erosion and the spreading of infectious diseases when people are forced to migrate because of droughts. According to the World Health Organisation, approximately 3.6 billion individuals currently reside in regions highly prone to climate change. It is projected that between 2030 and 2050, climate change will lead to around 250,000 extra deaths annually due to factors such as malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat-related illnesses. Land degradation affects not just humans but also other species. Biodiversity loss is strongly linked to it. From 1970 to 2012, there was a 38 percent decline in the average populations of terrestrial wild species and an 81 percent decline in freshwater species population, according to a report published by the European Commission.

These circumstances are a cause of deep concern, prompting a global imperative to restore our planet, ensuring food security and water availability for both present and future generations. There is a critical need to transition away from conventional agricultural approaches towards innovative solutions. This necessitates dietary adjustments and the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, avoiding excessive land usage for agricultural purposes. Several strategies can be employed to prevent or reverse land degradation. These include minimising soil erosion and enhancing soil quality, cultivating salt-resistant crops, adopting conservation agriculture practices, integrating crop, livestock and forestry systems, implementing local livestock management techniques, mitigating pollution sources, improving wetland management and implementing “green infrastructure” projects such as urban wastewater treatment and river channel restoration. Restoring the soils of degraded ecosystems has the potential to store up to 3 billion tonnes of carbon annually.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, to meet the world’s climate, biodiversity and ecosystem restoration objectives, investments in nature-based solutions must increase by more than twofold, reaching $542 billion by 2030. To address the current financial shortfall, governments might consider investing in early warning systems to mitigate the severe consequences of drought. Additionally, they could allocate funds towards land restoration initiatives and nature-based solutions. Meanwhile, the private sector could incorporate ecosystem restoration into their operational frameworks, adopt effective waste management strategies and support social enterprises dedicated to sustainable agriculture, eco-tourism and green technology.

The writer is an environmental expert based in the US. She is also a visiting senior research associate with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad