150 States Vow Stronger Anti-Desertification Drive
11/29/99
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Title: 150 States Vow Stronger Anti-Desertification Drive
Source: Reuters News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 29, 1999
Byline: Shasta Darlington
SAO PAULO - More than 150 countries agreed to step up a U.N.-led
effort to protect fertile land from encroaching deserts, closing a
two-week Brazilian conference on the global environmental crisis.
Deforestation, climate change, huge population growth, and excessive
farming are largely blamed for turning 58,000 square miles (150,000
sq. km) - an area larger than New York state- to dust each year.
The damage costs governments more than $4 billion annually and
affects more than 1 billion people, many of whom have been forced to
migrate to cities and other countries in search of work and food.
Seven years after countries joined the garment factory first drive
against desertification at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,
officials gathered in Brazil's northeastern city of Recife to assess
local measures and talk about global implementation.
The Recife Initiative signed on Saturday aims to stem the mounting
ecological and social catastrophes that were most thoroughly detailed
by acutely affected African nations.
But spats between advanced economies and the developing world over
who should foot the bill ultimately dashed hopes of major budged
increases for the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.
BUDGET INCREASE FALLS SHORT
The convention hoped to boost its two-year operating budget to $19.6
million from just $6.1 million this year. Member nations, however,
only agreed on an operating budget of $13.7 million.
Affected countries and environmental groups lashed out at developed
nations, claiming they have not followed through with sorely needed
funds to prevent desertification despite speedy progress on detailed
proposals and national action programmes.
"It's simple - we do all the work they ask of us and then they refuse
to pay," said one Latin American delegate.
Developed countries, however, said that they spent billions of
dollars a year on programmes to fight land degradation, erosion and
poverty and that affected countries needed to ensure that some of
these funds were earmarked for the drive against desertification.
"We are providing a lot of money through different channels," Ingrid-
Gabriela Hoven, the head of Germany's Environment Division, told
Reuters during the week. "We can't tell developed countries how to
prioritize it."
The convention's executive secretary, Hama Arba Diallo, agreed that
affected nations must "challenge desertification trends." But he also
endorsed their need for greater international support.
COMMITMENT, IMPLEMENTATION URGED
"The implementation of decisions just adopted will require the
sustained commitments by all actors concerned and a more decisive
mobilisation by the international community," Diallo said in a
statement on Saturday.
"We will not be able to guarantee a minimum of success in the future
if there is no continuity in the support provided to the affected
countries."
The Recife Initiative calls for members begin talks to detail
commitments and implement anti-degradation efforts. It suggests that
members focus on specific areas and sectors proposed in African
nations' action plans.
The initiative also proposes that the anti-desertification convention
be integrated into developing countries' mainstream national
development plans to ensure that the effort benefits from bilateral
funding projects.
And finally, in response to repeated criticism during the conference
that independent organisations had been ignored, the initiative calls
on environmental and other nongovernmental groups to take part in
implementation.
Some 900 government delegates and more than 200 representatives of
the United Nations and intergovernmental and nongovernmental
organisations attended the conference. Over 50 ministers and deputy
ministers addressed delegates, and 23 countries issued declarations
calling for strong and effective actions against dry-land
degradation.
The next conference will be held in Bonn, the convention's
headquarters, from Oct. 16 to 27, 2000.