DESERTIFICATION and Drought Day is a United Nations observance which is held on June 17 each year. The focus is on changing public attitudes to the leading driver of desertification and land degradation: humanity’s relentless production and consumption.

Drought and desertification are closely related phenomena. Persisting over months or years, drought can affect large areas and may have serious environmental, social, and economic impacts. This can be seen in Regions One (1) and Nine (9) in Guyana where hundreds of villagers are either displaced or suffer due to either flooding or extreme drought. One can argue that drought is a natural phenomenon, but its impacts can be exacerbated by human activities that are not adapted to the local climate. Inappropriate land use, such as monocultures, and unsustainable land management practices, such as deforestation, unsuitable agricultural practices, and overexploitation of water resources, can cause land degradation that can be further aggravated by drought.

“If we keep producing and consuming, as usual, we will eat into the planet’s capacity to sustain life until there is nothing left but scraps. We all need to make better choices about what we eat and what we wear to help protect and restore the land.” — Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary to the UNCCD.

Desertification and Drought Day, running under the slogan “Food, Feed, Fibre” seeks to educate individuals on how to reduce their personal impact. As populations become larger and more urban, there is far greater demand for land to provide food, animal feed, and fibre for clothing. Meanwhile, the health and productivity of existing arable land are declining, worsened by climate change. To have enough productive land to meet the demands of ten billion people by 2050, lifestyles need to change. We, humans, can think and use our skills to engineer solutions. Try as we might, we cannot control the weather. Thus we cannot prevent droughts that are caused strictly by a lack of rainfall or abundance of heat. We can however, manage our water resources to better handle these conditions so that drought does not occur during short dry spells.

What can be done?
With changes in consumer and corporate behaviour, and the adoption of more efficient planning and sustainable practices, there could be enough land to meet the demand. If every consumer were to buy products that do not degrade the land, suppliers would cut back the flow of these products and send a powerful signal to producers and policymakers.
Changes in diet and behaviours – such as cutting food waste, buying from local markets and swapping clothes instead of always buying new – can free up land for other uses and lower carbon emissions. Dietary change alone can free up between 80 and 240 million hectares of land.

In Guyana, the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission works with partner agencies like the EPA to implement the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and successfully hosted the seventeenth session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 17) of the UNCCD.

Find out more at https://www.unccd.int/actions17-june-desertification-and-drought-day/2020-desertification-and-drought-day

You can share your ideas and questions by sending letters to: “Our Earth, Our Environment”, C/O Communications Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Ganges Street, Sophia, GEORGETOWN, or email us at: eit.epaguyana@gmail.com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.