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CONTENTS
IN FOCUS
p 2 - The shifting fortunes of global science
NEWS
p 8 - Progress towards ocean targets too slow
p 8 - Water: a crisis of governance, says UN report
p 9 - A global plan to curb landslide losses
p 10 - The life sciences fête five women pioneers
p 10 - A tsunami warning system for the Caribbean
p 11 - New Cameroon centre joins fight against AIDS
p 12 - Great apes champion receives UNESCO medal
p 12 - UNESCO puts ethics within everyone's reach
INTERVIEW
p 12 - Would Einstein have approved?
HORIZONS
p 15 - Ethiopia: a pot of blue gold at the end of the
rainbow?
p 19 - The last frontier
IN BRIEF
p 24 - Diary
p 24 - New releases
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A
major security risk
Hama
Arba Diallo doesn't hesitate to draw a parallel between desertification
and human security. 'It is widely recognized', remarks the
Executive-Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification
(UNCCD), 'that environmental degradation has a role to play
in considerations of national security, as well as international
stability'.
Desertification is one of the most alarming processes of environmental
degradation; it contributes to food insecurity, famine and
poverty, and can give rise to social, economic and political
tensions that can degenerate into conflict. Each year, desertification
and drought cause an estimated US$42 billion in lost agricultural
production. About 41% of the Earth's surface area is made
up of drylands, home to more than 2 billion people. Between
10% and 20% of these drylands are degraded or unproductive.
The sheer scope of the problem led the UN General Assembly
to proclaim 2006 the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
The Year's main objective is to drive the point home that
desertification poses a major threat to humanity, a threat
weighted further under the scenarios of climate change and
biodiversity loss.
UNCCD is the only internationally recognized, legally binding
instrument addressing the problem of land degradation in dryland
rural areas. Through the Global Mechanism hosted by the International
Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome (Italy), the Convention
endeavours to channel much-needed resources to projects combating
the problem, particu-larly in Africa.
On 17 February, FAO appealed for US$18.5 million to help farmers,
herders and others hit by drought in southeastern Ethiopia
and suffering 'pre-famine conditions'. With the economies
of pastoralist groups in Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya also
devastated, some 11 million people in the Horn of Africa 'are
at risk of food shortages'. In this issue, we exam-ine plans
by Ethiopia to improve food security and halt galloping desertification
by develop-ing its water sector within an ambitious 15-year
programme. This case study is taken from the latest World
Water Development Report, launched by the United Nations in
March.
UNESCO has a long tradition in interdisciplinary drylands
research that goes back to the 1950s. Today, UNESCO's Man
and the Biosphere and International Hydrological Programmes
are pursuing research on the sustainable management of dryland
ecosystems and their water resources. Many biosphere reserves
situated in the world's drylands testify to the fact that
environmental conservation and sustainable development of
drylands can be mutually beneficial.
UNESCO is co-organizing a major conference from 19 to 21 June
in Tunis (Tunisia) on The Future of Drylands. This scientific
meeting will review the current state of knowledge of dryland
ecosystems and the socio-economics of dryland development,
with a view to advising decision-makers.
W.
Erdelen
Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences
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