Why in News?
World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is observed every year on the 17th of June.
Theme :
“Her Land. Her Rights”
Objective
Which focuses on women’s land rights, essential for achieving the
interconnected global goals of gender equality and land degradation neutrality by
2030 and contributing to the advancement of several other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Desertification
- Desertification, along with climate change and the loss of biodiversity, were identified as the greatest challenges to sustainable development during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
- Two years later, in 1994, the UN General Assembly established the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management and declared 17 June “World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought”.
- Later on, in 2007, the UN General Assembly declared 2010-2020 the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the fight against Desertification to mobilise global action to fight land degradation, led again by the UNCCD Secretariat.
What are the Related Initiatives to Reduce Desertification?
Indian Initiatives:
- Integrated Watershed Management Programme, since 2009-10
- Desert Development Programme
- National Mission on Green India
Global Initiatives:
- Bonn Challenge:
- The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030.
Read also:- Global Land Outlook Report
