UN set to open high-level meeting on combating desertification

Email|Print|Comments       twitter     facebook     Sina Microblog     reddit    

Ministers and senior government officials from 195 parties are set to start Monday a two-day UN special meeting on fighting the expansion of deserts across the globe.

The biyearly high-level gathering began on Sept. 16 with the 11th Conference of the Parties (COP 11) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Participants are expected to discuss in the form of three round-table topics including achieving a land degradation neutral world, promoting good practices in implementing the convention, and scaling up investments in avoiding land degradation and restoring degraded land.

They are expected to bring political momentum to the deliberations of parties on the best options to foster the implementation of the convention, which was adopted in 1994 to counter the destructive force of desertification and mitigate the effects of drought through international cooperation.

A summary of the outcomes of the round-table discussions will be submitted to the COP 11 meeting for further consideration.

At last year's Rio+20 summit on sustainable development, world leaders pledged to strive to achieve a land degradation neutral world.

Such a world will be realized by the way of preventing the degradation of healthy lands through sustainable land management and restoring land that is already degraded, according to the UN plan.

To this end, the UNCCD secretariat proposes that UN member states agree to a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on realizing zero land degradation by 2030.

• China Exclusive: Super plant combats desertification
• China's desertification reversed through constant efforts
• Tibet to combat river basin desertification
• Takash devotes to against desertification in China
• Desertification threatens world's highest railway
• Efforts to combat desertification pay off
• China, ROK join hands in fighting desertification
• Environmental monitoring official urges anti-desertification efforts in Xinjiang
• Anti-desertification program to start in NW China

We Recommend

• Storms leave 97 dead, 58 missing in Mexico
• New model of indigenous surface-to-air missiles testfired
  
• 118.28-carat diamond to be auctioned in HK
• Maternal love under streetlight
• Naked foreign student sits in the middle of a road in Haikou
  
• Colorful Yunnan: Enjoy the natural beauty
  
• Harbin named Chinese city with most beautiful women
• New college students' military training in Guangzhou
  
• Rugby girls