World Day To Combat Desertification And Drought is a day set aside by the United Nations General Assembly to
highlight the urgent need to curb the desertification process and
strengthen the visibility of the dry lands issue on the international
environmental agenda.
Correspondent Emmanuel Okonkwo who sampled people’s opinion on the
event, reports that
desertification is a global phenomenon of land degradation which
reduces the natural potential of the ecosystems and renders rural
populations vulnerable to food shortages, the vagaries of weather and
natural disasters.
It is primarily caused by human activities and climatic variations.
Speaking on the essence of the day, the Permanent Secretary Ministry
of Environment, Dr Emma Okafor who identified deforestation,
overgrazing and bad irrigation practices as some of human activities
in the environment which can undermine the productivity of land, or
lead to desertification and drought, called on the public to desist
from anti-environmental practices in order to make the environment
more habitable.
Contributing, the Director of Ecology, Ministry of Environment,
Comrade Anthony Odiegwu, and his Deputy, Mrs Ngozi Anyaragbu while
regretting that people flouts environmental laws through some
obnoxious practices that have caused depletion of the ozone layer,
encouraged the public to embrace afforestation and desist from
indiscriminate cutting of trees without replacement, indiscriminate
bush burning, interlocking of compounds, among others.
This year’s event which has its theme as “Food, Feed, Fibre: the links
between consumption and land”, focuses on changing public attitudes
towards the leading driver of desertification and land degradation.
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