TEHRAN – Agriculture Minister Gholamreza Nouri Qezeljeh has appointed the head of the Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization, Ali Teymouri, as the country’s representative in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Desertification is a phenomenon that ranks among the greatest environmental challenges the world is facing.

Currently, drought and desertification, as a part of a prevalent phenomenon called climate change, are imposed on the world, including Iran.

Iran is home to about 3.8 percent of the world’s total desert areas. Some 61 percent of the country’s area is covered by arid and semi-arid lands, which is 3.1 times the global average.

Sand and dust storms (SDSs) are among the contributing factors to desertification. The country has adopted different measures to mitigate the impacts of SDSs. Enhancing collaborations among different organizations to manage dust storms produced by internal dust zones effectively; holding bilateral and multilateral meetings with the officials of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Qatar, and Kuwait, and implementing the agreements concluded with these countries to address the SDSs are among the actions taken by the country.

Desertification 

Although desertification can include the encroachment of sand dunes on land, it doesn’t refer to the advance of deserts. Rather, it is the persistent degradation of dryland ecosystems by climate change and mainly human activities: unsustainable farming that depletes the nutrients in the soil, mining, overgrazing (animals eat away grasses and erode topsoil with their hooves) and clear-cutting of land, when the tree and plant cover that binds the soil is removed. It occurs when trees and bushes are stripped away for fuelwood and timber, or to clear land for cultivation.

Wind and water erosion aggravate the damage, carrying away topsoil and leaving behind a highly infertile mix of dust and sand. It is the combination of these factors that transforms degraded land into desert. It poses a serious challenge to sustainable development and humanity’s ability to survive in many areas of the world. 

During the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, desertification, along with climate change and the loss of biodiversity, were identified as the greatest challenges to sustainable development.

Two years later, in 1994, the General Assembly established the UNCCD. 197 countries and the European Union are now Parties to the Convention. 

The UNCCD’s goal is a future that avoids, reduces, and reverses desertification. It paves the way for a land degradation neutral world, one that fosters sustainable development to achieve the goals set in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

MT/MG