Joint Efforts to Fight East Asian Sandstorms

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Joint Efforts to Fight East Asian Sandstorms

The international community is looking to join forces to tackle sandstorms and is planning across- border cooperation to prevent and combat desertification in sandy regions.

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The international community is looking to join forces to tackle sandstorms and is planning across- border cooperation to prevent and combat desertification in sandy regions.

This was revealed at an international conference on cooperative projects to prevent and fight sandstorms in East Asia which opened on Monday in China's national capital Beijing.

Knowledge on Desertification

"...'desertification' means land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities;

'combating desertification' includes activities which are part of the integrated development of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas for sustainable development..."

---UNCCD, Article 1

The conference was organized by the Secretariat of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) of the U.N. Economic and Social Council, the UNCCD China Executive Secretariat and the State Forestry Administration of China.

Participants from China, Germany, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Australia and the United States, plus a dozen international organizations attended the conference, the first sub-regional cooperative meeting on sandstorms since UNCCD was created in 1994.

During Monday's meeting, participants shared their experience in preventing and combating sandstorms, and offered a wide range of options for international cooperation in preventing and controlling desertification.

Zhu Lieke, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, said China, one of the worst areas affected by sandstorms, had always paid close attention to preventing and controlling sand and sandstorms and had launched a great number of major afforestation projects to curb desertification of soil and reduce sand damage.

While pledging to participate actively in future East Asian regional and sub-regional projects, he also urged more international cooperation over sand control and more support from concerned countries and relevant international organizations.

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