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Minister and Governor from the Republic of Korea Launch the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification in the Asia-Pacific Region

 

 

At a ceremony attended by over 200 participants, including scientists, policy-makers and media organizations, Dr. Chung Kwang-Soo, Minister, Korea Forest Service and Mr Kim Doo-Kwan, Governor of Gyeongnam Province, together with Mr  Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification among others, presided over the launch of the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification in Seoul, Korea, on Tuesday, 12 October 2010.

 

“The next 10 years may be the most critical for the Asia Pacific Region in consolidating its path towards long-term sustainability,” Mr. Gnacadja said in his address. “The Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification is an opportunity to establish the safe-guards for managing the region’s land based resources and increase its resilience to disasters in order to sustain the gains made so far to eradicate poverty in the region,” he added.

 He said overcoming the misperception of the potential scope and impact of desertification, land degradation and drought in the region is one of the critical challenges, considering that close to 40% of the Asia-Pacific land area is affected by desertification. The Asia-Pacific region also has the largest population affected by desertification.

 The launch of the Decade in Asia follows two concurrent launches held in Latin America – also the global event – held in Fortaleza, Brazil, and for the African Region, held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 16 August. The launches in North America and Europe are scheduled to take place in November and December respectively.

 The United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification (UNDDD) runs from 2010 to 2020 as a results of the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution A/RES/ 62/ 195 of 2007. In the declaration, the Assembly acknowledges the persistence of desertification, despite past and on-going global efforts, and a slow response to poverty eradication among drylands populations. The Decade is a period for concerted global action.

 All actors are called upon to raise awareness about desertification, land degradation and drought and their solutions during this period. The Decade campaign also designed to reinforce the implementation of the ten-year strategy for 2008-2018 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. The UN Secretary-General will submit the first progress report on the achievements of the decade during the 69th session of UN General Assembly, in 2014.

For more information, contact the Inter-Agency Task Force through:
Wagaki Mwangi
Public Information and Media Officer
UNCCD
Email: arce@unccd.int
Tel: +49-(0)228- 815 2820
 

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UN Launches Decade-Long Effort to Boost Prospects for the World’s Drylands

Seoul, Republic of Korea, 12 October — Human security and prosperity are increasingly threatened by desertification, land degradation and drought in the drylands. In Asia, these threats affect more people and land than in any other region of the world. To highlight this, the United Nations today launched the Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification for the Asian region in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

“The devastating effects of drought in Russia and floods in Pakistan and China on rich agricultural lands this year show that we must take urgent measures to protect and preserve our land in order to avert future crises that imperil our food security,” said Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), who represented the UN at the Regional Launch in Korea.
“This is exactly the challenge of land degradation and the point of the Decade we are launching” Gnacadja said. “Drylands are home to one in three people in the world. They support half the world’s livestock and make up 44 per cent of the world’s cultivated systems. Most of us take these breadbaskets for granted, but they now face serious threats due to the increase and intensity of the cycles of drought and floods encountered in the drylands. While it takes only seconds for floodwaters to erode fertile soil, it can take 500 years to recover an inch of that soil, ” he emphasized.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his message to mark the start of the Decade, called on the global community to intensify efforts to “nurture the land we need for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and guaranteeing human well-being.”
“Continued land degradation – whether from climate change, unsustainable agriculture or poor management of water resources – is a threat to food security, leading to starvation among the most acutely affected communities and robbing the world of productive land,” Secretary-General Ban said.
During the 11-year campaign, from 2010-2020, the five UN agencies leading the initiative - the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Department of Public Information of the United Nations (DPI) - intend to reach every household with the simple message that “land is life, keep the drylands working.”

The statement delivered by Luc Gnacadja at the Asia-Pacific regional launch today is available here.

Notes to Editors:
Decade's History and Purpose

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2010-2020 the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification to heighten public awareness about the threat of desertification and land degradation as well as educate affected populations on ways to combat it by practicing sustainable land management to eradicate poverty, one of its key drivers. Additional information is available on the UNDDD Webpage: unddd.unccd.int

The complete press kit on the event is available at: http://unddd.unccd.int/docs/media.zip

Pictures for use with appropriate credits are available at: http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/photo/2009/awards/photobank.php and http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/photo/menu.php
Credits style: © [name of photographer] & UNCCD [year of contest] Photo Contest
Example: © Kushal Gangopadhyay & UNCCD 2005 Photo Contest

Footage on desertification and drought for use by television stations can be downloaded from the following two addresses:

http://downloads2.unmultimedia.org.s3.amazonaws.com/public/tv/Fortaleza ICID.mov
A description of this footage is contained in this press kit in the file “Transcript of launch in Fortaleza”

http://downloads2.unmultimedia.org.s3.amazonaws.com/public/tv/desertificationAfrica.mov
For more information, contact:
Ms. Seo-hyun Kang, Korea Forest Service, Tel: (+82) 42 481 8870, Email: shk@forest.go.kr, shkang83@korea.kr, shkang83@gmail.com
Mr. Kim, Kyungsoo, UNCCD, Tel: (+66) 2 288 2560, Email: kim5@un.org
Ms. Wagaki Mwangi, UNCCD, Tel: (+49) 228 815 2820, Email: wmwangi@unccd.int

 

Seoul to Host the Regional Launch of the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification in the Asia-Pacific Region

The City of Seoul, Republic of Korea, will host the launch of the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification for the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday, 12 October 2010, at the COEX Convention Center, in Seoul. The Republic of Korea is neither a drylands country nor has it been hard hit by the recent disasters, but it lies in one of the most disaster prone regions of the world, where drought and floods impacts are major causes.

From Australia to China, Cambodia to Pakistan and from the Philippines to India, populations have suffered death, and land and economic damage. According to the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the floods in Australia in 2009 caused damages valued at USD3.9 billion. The Asia-Pacific region was hit by 42 disasters between January and September 2009, of which 16 were floods. Floods had affected 1.2 billion people in the region between 1980-2008¹. Droughts and floods undermine the productive capacity of the land.

Recognizing that environmental problems have a transboundary dimension, the Republic of Korea is keen to express solidarity with affected countries and to support greening activities. By hosting the launch of the UNDDD, the country intends to raise awareness at home and in the region about the impacts of desertification, land degradation and drought, especially as host to the tenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification that will take place in Gyeongham Province in fall 2011.

The launch of the UN Decade in the Asia-Pacific region will precede the ‘International Symposium on DLDD Mitigation and the Role of the UNCCD’ that will take place on the same day and at the same venue.

For more information on the launch in Korea contact:

Ms. Seo-hyun Kang, Korea Forest Service, Tel: (+82) 42 481 8870, Email: shk@forest.go.kr, shkang83@korea.kr, shkang83@gmail.com

For more information on the UNDDD contact:
Ms. Wagaki Mwangi, UNCCD Secretariat, Tel: (+49) 228 815 2820, Email: wmwangi@unccd.int

For information on the International Symposium contact:
Ms. Hearee Yi, Korea Forest Service, Tel (+82-42-481-8878), Email: hearee@forest.go.kr, hearee@korea.kr