DESERTIFICATION

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Ministers urge stronger action on land restoration, drought resilience and investment 

 UNCCD Executive Secretary calls for increased investment to translate commitments into action 

Paris/Bonn, 25 April 2026 —  Ministers at the Group of Seven (G7) Environment Ministerial meeting, held in Paris from 23 to 24 April, formally recognized desertification, land degradation and drought as systemic global challenges and security risk multipliers, committing to strengthen action on land restoration, drought resilience and sustainable land management. 

These interlinked crises are already affecting ecosystems, livelihoods and food and water security, with growing implications for economic stability and peace, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected regions. 

In their joint declaration, ministers stressed the strategic importance of addressing the land degradation–security nexus, highlighting how environmental pressures are intensifying competition over resources, contributing to displacement and heightening risks of instability. 

In the past six decades, over 40 per cent of intrastate conflicts have been linked to disputes over natural resources, particularly land and water, underscoring the growing security implications of land degradation and drought. 

Land degradation already affects a significant share of the world’s land—up to 40 per cent—and costs an estimated US$ 900 billion annually, with cascading impacts across food systems, water availability, economies and livelihoods. 

Welcoming the declaration, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Yasmine Fouad, said this political recognition must now translate into action, highlighting the gap between commitments and implementation. 

“Land degradation and drought are no longer marginal issues. They are already shaping the daily lives of millions of people, affecting what they can grow, what they can eat and whether they can remain on their land,” Fouad said. “Restoring land is therefore an investment in peace, resilience and long-term stability. What is needed now is to match political attention with the financing and partnerships required to deliver results.” 

“We are not facing a knowledge gap. We are facing an implementation gap,” she added. “Countries have already identified their priorities and targets. The challenge now is real progress on the ground.” 

This urgency is underscored by the scale of the challenge. An estimated 3.2 billion people already live in areas affected by land degradation, placing increasing pressure on food systems, livelihoods and social stability. Ministers highlighted that investment in land restoration and drought resilience remains insufficient and fragmented, calling for stronger alignment of public and private finance and greater coordination across international financial institutions. 

In support of these commitments, the French Presidency announced initiatives such as the Nature & People Finance Alliance, aimed at scaling up public and private investment in nature and ecosystems. 

These efforts are anchored in the declaration, which reaffirms the central role of the UNCCD in addressing desertification, land degradation and drought globally, and identifies the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UNCCD, to be held in Mongolia in August 2026, as a key opportunity to deliver concrete outcomes. 

Looking ahead, Executive Secretary Fouad stressed that COP17 must now deliver tangible progress on land restoration and drought resilience. 

“COP17 must be the moment where commitments on land restoration and drought resilience translate into visible progress, particularly in the most vulnerable regions,” she said.  

“It is an opportunity to bring land to the center of global economic and security discussions and ensure it is treated as a strategic priority.” 

Notes to Editors: 

The G7 Environment Ministers adopted a declaration recognizing desertification, land degradation and drought as systemic global challenges and security risk multipliers and reaffirming the central role of the UNCCD in advancing land restoration and drought resilience globally. 

More information, including the G7 declaration on desertification, land degradation and drought: 

https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/press/g7-environment-ministers-meeting-progress-6-areas-boosting-collective-action

For media enquiries   

UNCCD Press Office: press@unccd.int    

About UNCCD    

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the global vision and voice for land. We unite governments, scientists, policymakers, private sector and communities around a shared vision and global action to restore and manage the world’s land for the sustainability of humanity and the planet. Much more than an international treaty signed by 197 Parties, UNCCD is a multilateral commitment to mitigating today’s impacts of land degradation and advancing tomorrow’s land stewardship to provide food, water, shelter and economic opportunity to all people in an equitable and inclusive manner. 

https://www.spacewar.com/reports/Prevention_Vital_Against_Desertification_999.html

by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 24, 2006
Parched Asian nations such as Mongolia and China must act swiftly to prevent the creeping spread of deserts which costs the global economy 42 billion dollars a year, a UN expert said Thursday.

“Regaining lost land is too expensive. Prevention is the only solution for countries that do not have enough resources,” said Hama Araba Diallo, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Israel was one example of a country that had managed to regain land lost to spreading desert but at a high technological cost, the UN expert said.

“For farmers in Mali or Mongolia, we can only say ‘please protect that topsoil from washing away’,” he told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, adding that thousands of years were needed for topsoil to recover to a state where it could yield crops.

Land degradation causes crop losses of around 42 billion dollars a year, according to the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), which has declared 2006 a year of focus on deserts and desertification.

The UN estimates that about 27 percent of China is now desert and economic losses from growing dust bowls there amount to 6.5 billion dollars a year. Central Asian countries are also affected by land degradation.

Countries, especially developing countries, must integrate more desertification prevention measures into their economic policies to tackle the effects on agriculture, the economy, health and society, Diallo said.

Deserts cover 41 percent of the world’s surface and desertification menaces about 250 million people on five continents. Some 1.2 billion people in the world’s 110 poorest states are under threat, according to the UN.

The main causes are believed to be over-harvesting, cattle-breeding and overgrazing, deforestation and climate change.

The most endangered region is Africa, especially in the south and in the Sahel countries bordering the Sahara Desert, followed by Central Asia and China, UN experts warn.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Related Links
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
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https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research-news/202604/t20260407_1155354.shtml

Editor: ZHANG Nannan | Apr 07, 2026

A two-year field study led by WANG Yongcui from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified how native vegetation configurations influence the recovery and stability of desertified grasslands at different stages of degradation.

The findings, published in Plant and Soil, suggest that the initial severity of desertification strongly influences restoration outcomes, with moderately degraded grasslands showing the most pronounced response.

Grassland desertification poses a significant ecological challenge in semi-arid regions, where vegetation loss and soil degradation diminish biodiversity and impair critical ecosystem functions, including nutrient cycling and water retention. Restoring these systems requires reestablishing not only aboveground plant communities, but also rebuilding soil seed banks. These banks consist of viable seeds stored in the soil that play a critical role in natural regeneration. However, the process of selecting effective native plant combinations across different stages of degradation is not well understood.

To address this issue, the researchers conducted in situ restoration experiments in the Zhanggutai area on the southern margin of the Horqin Sandy Land, a representative region of desertified grasslands in northern China. The study included sites that were lightly, moderately, or severely desertified, with treatments consisting of an unplanted control and two configurations that added two native species using locally adapted plants. From 2024 to 2025, the researchers monitored the characteristics of the aboveground vegetation and the soil seed bank.

The researchers found that the effectiveness of native species addition varied significantly with the degree of desertification. Moderately desertified grasslands showed the strongest and most sustained improvements, with substantial increases in plant species richness, vegetation cover, and density under near-natural vegetation configurations. These treatments also significantly enhanced the species composition similarity between aboveground vegetation and soil seed banks, indicating a tighter coupling between the two components and a stronger capacity for self-regeneration.

In contrast, lightly desertified grasslands showed a limited response to restoration treatments. This was largely due to the competitive dominance of existing species, which constrained the establishment of newly introduced plants. Severely desertified grasslands responded more slowly because harsh abiotic conditions, such as low soil fertility and water deficiency, limited vegetation recovery.

Further analysis revealed that soil seed bank diversity gradually increased under restoration treatments and that improvements in community structure were associated with the incorporation of key native species, such as Lespedeza davurica and Allium ramosum. The researchers also noted that combining shrubs and herbaceous species enhanced functional complementarity, thereby improving overall ecosystem stability and resistance to disturbance.

This study emphasizes that moderately desertified grasslands are critical for ecological restoration because targeted native vegetation configurations can rapidly rebuild plant communities and strengthen vegetation–seed bank linkages.

While restoration in lightly and severely degraded systems faces constraints from biotic competition and abiotic stress, respectively, the findings emphasize the importance of tailoring restoration strategies to site-specific conditions.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/how-saudi-arabia-is-using-wastewater-to-build-a-green-corridor-in-the-desert/articleshow/130233068.cms

In Saudi Arabia, there have been attempts to redefine the ut ..

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/130233068.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

https://www.preventionweb.net/news/much-humanity-may-face-hot-dry-extremes-five-times-more-often-end-century

Source(s): American Geophysical Union

Shutterstock

The increase may hit nearly 30% of the global population with extreme events more dangerous than heat or drought alone, especially in low-income tropical nations

WASHINGTON — In their current state, climate policies around the world could leave a significant chunk of the global population exposed to simultaneous extreme heat and drought over five times more often by the end of this century than during the mid-to-late 20th century.  

In a new study, researchers project the increase will affect 28% of the global population overall, concentrated in low-income, tropical nations that have contributed only a small fraction of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions to date. 

“Heat and drought amplify each other,” said Di Cai, a climate scientist at the Ocean University of China and lead author of the study. “In compound hot-dry extremes, they lead to water restrictions and unstable food prices. For outdoor workers, it is dangerous.” 

The study will appear Tuesday, April 7, 2026 in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU’s journal for high-impact, innovative, and timely articles on major advances across the geosciences. 

Amplified extremes 

When heat and drought strike together, the damage often exceeds the sum of what they can inflict separately. Wildfire risk, agricultural losses, and heat-related mortality can all spike. 

These extreme combos are already on the rise. When the researchers divided Earth’s land into cells on a grid and compared heat and drought occurrence in each cell, they found that, on geographical average, Earth’s land areas weathered roughly four hot-dry events per year from 2001 to 2020. By their estimates, that’s about twice as often as in the preindustrial period from 1850 to 1900. 

To see how conditions might evolve through the end of this century, the team analyzed 152 existing simulations based on eight climate models, considering various scenarios of population growth and global warming outlined in the Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For this study, they defined hot-dry events as days with a high temperature in the top 10% and at least moderate drought, both relative to records from the 1961 to 1990 baseline. 

The effort required processing terabytes of data, a significant challenge. “The more chaotic the climate becomes, the more difficult it becomes to make forecasts,” said Monica Ionita, a climatologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute and senior author of the study. “It’s very difficult to keep up with what’s going on now.” 

In the climate and population growth scenario most aligned with our current trajectory, the team found, hot-dry extremes become “heightened” (over five times more probable on any given day than during 1961 to 1990) for 28% of the global population — nearly 2.6 billion people — by the 2090s. For comparison, they expect only about 6.6% to suffer that level of exposure in the 2030s. 

“When you get to almost 30% of the global population affected by this, it’s very critical. It should make us consider much, much more deeply our actions in the future,” Ionita said. She had anticipated a slightly slower pace of change, ending at a figure of maybe 10% or 15%. “By the end or middle of the century, maybe my children will not be able to experience the life that I have now.” 

Some reap what others sow 

Globally, compound hot-dry extremes may strike nearly 10 times per year on average by end-century, with the longest lasting around 15 days — increases of 2.4 and 2.7 times from the conditions of the past 25 years, respectively. Human emissions of greenhouse gases drive those changes: When the researchers analyzed simulations with only natural forces at play, no significant trends in the frequency or duration of hot-dry extremes emerged. 

However, those who emit the most likely won’t suffer the greatest impacts. According to the geographical distribution of risk in the simulations, low-income nations around the equator and tropics, including islands such as Mauritius and Vanuatu, will feel the most exacerbated hot-dry extremes despite contributing far fewer emissions than wealthier nations. For context, the team estimated the climate impact from the carbon 1.2 average U.S. citizens emit over their lifetimes could expose one additional person to heightened hot-dry extremes by the end of the century. 

“For lower-income countries, there is a huge unfairness here,” Cai said. “It’s hard to fund air conditioning. It’s hard to fund health care. There is no backup if water runs out. It’s not just a climate science issue; it is about basic, daily life.” 

Limiting emissions could avert a lot of risk, the researchers found. If all nations fully implement the climate action plans they contributed under the Paris Agreement, as well as more binding long-term pledges, about 18% of the global population would face heightened exposure to hot-dry extremes by the century’s end. That equates to roughly 1.7 billion people, nearly a third fewer than the number under the current trajectory. 

“The choices we make today will directly affect the daily lives of billions of people in the future,” Cai said. 

https://energiesmedia.com/solar-panels-in-desert-turn-landscape-into-green/

by Anke – April 8, 2026

When a large-scale solar farm is in the right environment, it helps nature flourish rather than languish.

Renewable energy’s primary goal is to mitigate the effects of climate change, but it seems the damage is worsening regardless.

Globally, desertification has become a silent crisis affecting billions of people and incurring high ecological costs.

• https://spacedaily.com/algiers-conference-to-tackle-africa-desertification-999/ – by Staff Writers

• Algiers (AFP) – Sep. 06, 2011

Regional cooperation to improve the fight against creeping desertification of the African continent is at the centre of a conference that is to open here Thursday.

“It is difficult to bring action programmes of the continent’s sub-regions in line if national programmes (to fight the problem) are insufficient,” Youcef Brahimi of the Rome-based UN agency Global Mechanism to combat desertification told AFP.

Brahimi said the UN agency on Tuesday presented a platform for cooperation and partnership as a basis for the Algiers conference.

“We’re talking about an Internet site that has useful information on financial opportunities,” he said, adding that those interested in a partnership or a mobilisation of resources could develop these partnerships online.

https://english.news.cn/20260410/7090219e091e480eaeb27cb1fa6c7ba4/c.html

Source: Xinhua – Editor: huaxia – 2026-04-10 

China’s Inner Mongolia has recently pioneered an integrated “air-space-ground” monitoring system for desertification control in the Mu Us Desert. #InnerMongolia #China #SciTech

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-04-08/VHJhbnNjcmlwdDkwMDQz/index.html

China continues to be locked in a decade’s long fight to stop the desert form throughout Inner Mongolia. In our latest series Chasing China’s pulse, Sean Callebs traveled to one area in the region, where millions of trees have been planted, part of the country’s famed, “Green Wall.” Over the years it has changed the landscape from a bland, sandy terrain – into a community teeming with green trees. But as we learn in this report, it is an ongoing fight.

The scars are easy to find in this community. Chasms carved throughout the yellow sandy landscape – the effects of erosion.

Two decades ago, this community, outside the provincial capital of Hohhot, began to fight back against the desert, and nature.

Millions of trees have been planted.

SEAN CALLEBS Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region “How can you grow something in this kind of soil, – how hard is it to grow?”

LIN KUOCHENG Inner Mongolia Project Director, The Nature Conservancy “The first thing we had to do was figure out how to convert as much natural rainfall as possible into ecological use – to make sure it wouldn’t be wasted or lost.”

It’s an incredibly arid region, starved of rainfall, but work progressed. In all three million trees were planted. Mongolian Pine, Chinese Pine, Apricot, Elm. Funding came from a charitable donation.

Technical expertise, from Lin Kuocheng, and his associates with the global environmental non-profit, The Nature Conservancy.

LIN KUOCHENG Inner Mongolia Project Director, The Nature Conservancy “At the beginning when we started planting trees here, we faced enormous challenges. The area looked extremely barren and desolate. Whether trees could survive at all was a big question.”

It has worked. This satellite image shows the region 20-years ago – brown, void of vegetation. Today – it is fully green.

SEAN CALLEBS Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region “We are standing in the middle of a healthy forest. But 20-years ago, this wasn’t here. This was all sand and dying grassland. What you are looking at, is the successful fruits of planting trees in this region. They have had good years, and bad years. This represents the growth of one year, these little knots. Some years have been successful, some not – the reason the punishing effects of climate change.”

The wind is from the north, and seemingly always strong. But the people are strong as well, and embrace change.

YANG SHUANTAO Inner Mongolia farmer “For farmers, the improved environment also means more rainfall, which brings benefits to agriculture.”

Yang Shuantao has been tending to her livestock, and working the fields of Inner Mongolia all her life.

Trees, she says breathed life into the region. It’s now easier to coax crops from the sandy soil.

But she says the most significant change – massive sandstorms that covered roads, houses, and blew far and wide into cities including as far away as Beijing and Shanghai are a thing of the past.

YANG SHUANTAO Inner Mongolia farmer “Here, the situation with the sand has improved a lot. And, there is so much more vegetation now. There have been so many trees planted. The sand can’t blow up into storms like it did in the past.”

LIN KUOCHENG Inner Mongolia Project Director, The Nature Conservancy “There is actually a local saying that used to describe how bleak, and how harsh the conditions used to be. ‘No treasure underground, no grass on the ground, and no birds in the sky.’ It really shows just how harsh the conditions used to be.”

Here, it remains a constant battle. But, more rain, more vegetation, less erosion, fewer sandstorms. It’s an equation that gives people in this rural land hope. Sean Callebs, CGTN, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Chinese project turns sand dunes into cropland to combat desertification and strengthen food security

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3349579/two-years-china-proves-its-desert-wheat-farms-are-not-hoax

Dannie Peng in Beijing – Published: 10 Apr 2026

China’s “desert wheat farms” have survived repeated sandstorms and continue to grow following an initial trial in the country’s largest desert, as part of an ongoing effort to combat desertification and unlock the land’s potential for strengthening national food security.

Two years ago, on the fringes of the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China launched an unprecedented project to plant wheat in sand.

The first harvest, covering 400 hectares (988 acres) on the desert’s southwestern edge, proved a landmark achievement. Since then, sustained efforts across various desert locations have enabled crops to withstand harsh conditions, while reducing the labour required as the planting area expands.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2638077/amp

https://arab.news/prx4x

• Major national environmental milestone lauded by organization
• Executive secretary of UN Convention to Combat Desertification commends Kingdom’s leadership

JEDDAH: The UN has praised Saudi Arabia for achieving the major national environmental milestone of restoring 1 million hectares of degraded land, in line with global environmental objectives, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Sunday.

The organization said the achievement reflected an integrated approach and a clear commitment to delivering tangible change on the ground, demonstrating that land restoration was possible even in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

Yasmine Fouad, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, commended the Kingdom’s leadership in adopting major international environmental initiatives, including the Middle East Green Initiative and the Global Land Initiative, as well as its presidency of the Conference of the Parties.

She said Saudi Arabia had helped raise global ambition and strengthen collective action, emphasizing that restoring degraded land was not only an environmental priority but also a development and humanitarian achievement.

Such efforts directly enhanced food security, supported local economies, created jobs, and improved the quality of life in affected communities, while also addressing broader global challenges such as climate change, stability in fragile regions, and displacement linked to land degradation, she added.

Fouad said the restoration of 1 million hectares was “not just a number” but a powerful message at a time when the world faced accelerating land degradation and worsening drought.

She added that the milestone underscored the importance of strong partnerships among government, the private sector, and civil society, demonstrating that multilateral cooperation was essential to achieving meaningful transformation.

The Kingdom had also presented a global model for ecosystem restoration by adopting nature-based solutions, leveraging innovation, and aligning policies with practical implementation, she said.

These efforts form part of the broader Saudi Green Initiative and are grounded in rigorous scientific methodologies for measurement and verification to restore ecosystem functions, enhance biodiversity, and ensure sustainable resource management for future generations.

Fouad expressed appreciation for the Kingdom’s continued efforts to advance the global environmental agenda, noting that the achievement marked an important step in a longer journey requiring sustained commitment, faster action, and broader partnerships.

Land restoration, she added, was an investment in people, stability, and a more sustainable and prosperous future for all.

https://odessa-journal.com/the-danube-region-in-odessa-region-faces-the-threat-of-desertification

In Odessa region, there is a unique Danube region—in the Danube delta, among estuaries, floodplains, lakes, and coastal ecosystems—that forms one of the most valuable wetland complexes not only in Ukraine but throughout Europe. These ecosystems support thousands of plant and animal species, regulate the microclimate, retain moisture, mitigate the effects of droughts, serve as key habitats for many flora and fauna species, and form the basis for traditional livelihoods of local communities. This was explained by Maksym Yakovlev, Deputy Director for Scientific Work at the Danube Biosphere Reserve, as reported by Bessarabia Inform.

One of the main causes of such hydrological redistribution has been large-scale hydraulic interventions, including the construction of a jet-guiding dam at Cape Izmail Chatal, which blocked a significant portion of the natural width of the Danube at its branching point. Simultaneously, changes occurred in the intra-annual distribution of river flow: during low-water periods, the Kiliya branch carries an ever-decreasing share of water, which is critical for nourishing floodplains, minor branches, and floodplain lakes. This issue has been repeatedly raised, including by the Danube Biosphere Reserve, at the state level, but unfortunately remains unresolved to this day.

Currently, the wetlands of the Danube region (like most other wetlands in Ukraine) are rapidly degrading and losing their natural functions. Small rivers in the region have nearly disappeared due to transformation and degradation. One of the most acute environmental problems is the large-scale redistribution of flow in the Kiliya branch of the Danube, which has been ongoing throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Kiliya branch accounted for about 72% of the river’s flow; by the second half of the 20th century, this decreased to 58–52%, and in recent decades, it has dropped to less than 50%. Current estimates indicate that annual water losses for the Kiliya branch reach around 40 km³—a volume comparable to the combined annual flows of several major rivers in Ukraine.

The consequences for the Ukrainian part of the delta are extensive and multidimensional. Wetlands over more than 80,000 hectares are degrading, navigable depths are lost, minor branches die off, water exchange in lakes and estuaries worsens, and saltwater intrusion into the delta progresses.

The situation is further exacerbated by climate change, which is particularly acute in southern Ukraine. In recent decades, there has been a steady increase in average annual temperatures, longer and more intense summer droughts, reduced precipitation during the warm season, and disruption of seasonal rhythms. Combined with decreased Danube water flow, this triggers processes typical of semi-arid regions—desertification. Lowering of groundwater levels, drying of floodplains, degradation of meadows, and soil salinization lead to the loss of natural vegetation, reduced landscape productivity, and further shrinkage of wetland areas. Wetlands, which traditionally acted as “moisture reservoirs” and natural buffers, are gradually losing the ability to mitigate drought processes, thereby increasing regional climate risks.

Thus, preserving the wetlands of the Danube region is impossible without restoring the natural hydrological regime, maintaining protective coastal strips, implementing ecologically oriented management, and engaging in international dialogue on the use of Danube water resources.