SINGAPORE (Reuters) — Half the world’s natural pasture land has been degraded by exploitation and the impact of climate change, a United Nations body said May 21.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) warned that a sixth of the world’s food supplies are at risk from deterioration of the world’s rangelands, which include savannas, wetlands and deserts as well as grassland.
Population growth, urbanization and rising food demand have encouraged herders to raise more animals than the land can support, and have driven conversion of natural pastures into intensive cropland, it said, leading s to lower soil fertility and worsening droughts.
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Barron Joseph Orr, UNCCD’s chief scientist, said that while the situation is bleak, there is growing recognition that land restoration is part of the solution to climate change. Rangelands account for a third of the world’s carbon reservoir capacity.
“Emissions are the big issue for sure, but where do we want to put the carbon, where does it naturally belong? In our soils and in our vegetation, and if you keep undermining that, you undermine your solution,” he said.
Rangelands constitute about 54 per cent of the world’s total land and support two billion producers, the UNCCD report said.
The previous estimate of degradation was 25 per cent, but UNCCD said it severely undercounted the damage done and its new figure is based on surveys from experts in more than 40 countries.
The report identified Central Asia, China and Mongolia as the most badly affected, as agricultural industrialization displaces traditional herding communities and puts more pressure on resources.
Africa, the Middle East and South America have also seen widespread degradation, it said.
Orr said governments need to take a more collaborative approach to the protection of land rather than focusing on individual restoration projects. He also said that traditional herding practices could help rangelands recover.
“The way things were done in the past, traditionally, can go a long way towards the solutions that we’re trying to achieve today,” he said.
“They worked for a long, long time and they can work again, given the right circumstances.”
