"Agriculture is the biggest degrader of land, the authors say. Transforming farming practices could restore billions of acres by 2050 for less than is spent on developed-world farm subsidies."
"Damage to the Earth’s lands, largely caused by the expansion of agriculture, has put the planet on “crisis footing,” say the authors of a sweeping new report that urgently calls for the restoration of billions of acres of terrain to forestall the worst impacts of climate change.
The report, published Wednesday, is the second major report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), a lesser-known U.N. group that’s pressing the world’s countries, governments and industries to preserve and rehabilitate degraded lands and ecosystems.
“Our health, our economy, our well-being depends on land. Our food, our water, the air we breathe are all coming from the land, at least partially,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UNCCD, in a call with reporters. “Humanity has already altered 70 percent of the land. This is a major, major figure.”
Underway for five years and written by land-use and ecosystem experts across 21 organizations, the report arrives at some sobering conclusions, including that up to 40 percent of the planet’s land is already degraded, affecting half of the people alive today."
Georgina Gustin reports for Inside Climate News April 27, 2022.
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