Land abuse could spark forced migrations

26-Aug-2003: By Guy Rogers --

THE cartoon aeroplane on the electronic map, edging forward across fabulous lands, held me spellbound, and the names began to give a sense of place: Cancun, Miami, Caracas, San Juan, Santa Domingo, Le Habana; Cuba shaped like a fish suspended on the rim of the Gulf of Mexico, nosing out into the Atlantic. Finally we were here.

We dropped down through gray cloud lit by a streaky orange sunset revealing green fields and a meandering brown river, a very African picture, and then suddenly it was dark, and the lights of the city swam into view.

I wrote most of this column sitting in Madrid airport waiting for my connecting flight, a day late on my time table because of an over-booking snarl-up in Johannesburg by Iberia, and I had begun to think I would never get here.

The occasion is the 6th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), unfolding over the next fortnight in the grand Palacio des Convenciones in Havana, and I am here courtesy of a wonderful invitation from the UN, directed to me through the France based international environmental news agency Planets-Voice. Besides the government delegations including some 20 heads of state, NGOs, scientists and conservationists are also attending.

Ten million hectares of productive land are being lost every year due to inappropriate land use, over-grazing and the demolition of forests. It´s a world-wide problem of terrible dimensions plugged directly into poverty, hunger and forced migration. Once Earth´s natural mantle has been stripped away wind and water erosion sets in, groundwater can become saline and biodiversity and economic potential are literally blown away with the unprotected topsoil.

Already 135 million people are at risk of being forcibly displaced due to this degradation of the land and resulting desertification, threatening to explode existing tensions over scarce resources. If left unchecked, the situation will likely generate some 25 million "ecosystem refugees" as they're being called in the next 20 years in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

The epicentre of desertification is Africa where 65 per cent of agricultural land already is degraded. And one only needs to take a drive through our former homelands not last of which Ciskei and Transkei to know that South Africa is guilty too of this brutalisation of the land and that we are vulnerable to its consequences too.

The seriousness of the problem is clearly recongnised by our government who have sent a strong environmental delegation to attend to this conference. Deputy President Jacob Zuma is due to arrive for the political leg of the conference next week – which will be presided over by legendary Cuban leader Fidel Castro -- together with both Environment Minister Valli Moosa and his deputy Rejoice Mabudafhasi.

A land care approach is of course already built into our agricultural policy and communities in the Katberg for instance are working hard to put goals into practice. Our Working for Wetlands and Working for Water programmes and the first-rate STEP project out of the University of Port Elizabeth (aimed at protecting the economic potential of valley bushveld) are other key initiatives, and it will be interesting to see if these success stories are told here at the conference.

The reason the event is happening here is because Cuba has been a very active member of the UNCCD's resuscitation programmes and because its own desertification stats are serious. Seventy-six per cent of Cuban land is degraded and drought has doubled in frequency over the past three decades. Reforestation projects are successfully countering this damage however and forest cover has grown from 14 per cent of what it was to 22 per cent in the past 40 years.

The UNCCD is the only legally binding instrument we have to address this growing global threat and the idea is that the 3000-odd delegates to this indaba wll have the opportunity to share diverse views on shortcomings and success stories and improve the implementation of the convention. The meeting must culminate with decisions and a report which will serve as a blueprint for concrete action in the next biennium.

One of the major talking points at the conference is sure to be the announcement last week by the Global Environment Facility of their launch of a milestone R4000 million ($500 million) programme to fight land degradation. Working with affected countries, the facility will be trying to integrate sustainable land management into national development priorities, to strengthen local skills capacity and to implement innovations tailored around specific problems.

The friendly sound of a cock crowing woke me at dawn this morning from my sleep in a residency in suburban Havana and I stood on my porch in the humid darkness and listened to the lively strains of son (traditional Cuban music) from a neighbour’s transistor. Later, on a taxi ride in search of official accreditation, I travelled through spotless streets lined with huge la ceiba trees (around which, according to folk lore, the people join hands and make a wish on November 15); past cadillacs and motorbikes with side-cars, beautiful ladies in mini-skirts and even lovelier old buildings. If something magical can be done to break the grip of desertification and alleviate poverty, surely this is the place for it to happen.

-- One of the key supporting stakeholders of STEP is the Wildlife and Environment Society (WESSA) so it was excellent to hear just before my departure of the society´s receipt of a brand new double cab bakkie from the Mazda Wildlife Fund. East Cape Motors has undertaken to maintain the vehicle free of charge and it will be invaluable for the society´s field work. It's these kinds of gestures and the work being done by organisations like WESSA that make sense of the big indabas, as important as they are, and turn the talk into action.