June 17 is Desertification and Drought Day.

Today, desertification, land degradation and drought arise as the main factors threatening the future of the Earth.

According to data available, soil takes up to hundreds of years to form, and 40% of the global land has already been depleted. Meanwhile, population growth, unsustainable production and consumption increase the demand for natural resources. At present, an area of land as large as four football pitches is being degraded per second, resulting in the degradation of 100 million hectares of land every year.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Secretariat set “United for Land. Our Legacy. Our Future,” as the theme of Desertification and Drought Day 2024 and calls upon all countries and regions to turn out in a recharged global action on land restoration and drought resilience.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of UNCCD.

As a signatory to the convention, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is vigorously promoting the work to prevent desertification and drought and conserve the soil.

Tree nurseries built in different parts of the country are producing hundreds of millions of saplings of good species for afforestation every year, and spring and autumn tree-planting is being conducted on a nationwide scale.

In order to prevent soil erosion of farmland efforts are directed to turning fields on hillsides with a gradient of over 10° into terraced ones and planting dwarf trees, crops and medicinal herbs there.

The agricultural sector is positively introducing conservative farming techniques to prevent soil erosion and raise the fertility of soil and its water-holding capacity so as to ensure sustainable growth of grain production.

Amid the vigorous efforts to build up the country’s irrigation system, the planned project this year for construction and repair of waterways and underground water facilities have been completed in the main.

The state has established a comprehensive management system for preventing flood damage of rivers and making effective use of water resources, a nationwide forest fire monitoring system and a land resource assessment system and is making efforts to further perfect them.

At the same time, it gives wide publicity to the importance of land conservation to encourage all the people to turn out as one to this end with a sense of patriotism.

We will further intensify scientific research to protect and restore the soil, the future of the Earth, and proactively join international efforts to prevent desertification and drought.

Sin Ki Yong, head of the Agricultural Land Resources Institute

under the Academy of Agricultural Science