Land is an element most indispensable to human existence and activities.

But now, land is undergoing desertification in many areas of the world owing to various natural disasters caused by global warming and to overuse of it.

Desertification has destroyed the soil structure and caused the loss of its nutrients and many rivers and lakes have run dry in many countries, with the result that they are suffering from irrigation water shortage.

According to data available, healthy land as wide as four football grounds is degenerating every second.

Especially, over 100 million hectares of fertile and high-yield land degenerated every year in the world from 2015 to 2019.

The speed of land degeneration is higher than the world average in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, West Asia, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean region.

This is a serious problem to people who live with land as the main base for their living.

Continuous drought is also a major factor threatening human lives.

In April this year, Zimbabwe declared drought as a national disaster.

The president of the country said that this year it rained quite less in over 80 percent of its regions and expressed his concern that it would compel over 2.7 million people to suffer from starvation nationwide.

An international research group investigated the decrease in the precipitation in the Amazon basin from June to November last year and announced that temperature rose due to climate change and El Niño caused severe drought there.

The drought greatly affected fishing, tourism and other aspects of the local residents’ life, the research group said, warning that such drought would occur more frequently unless the use of fossil fuel and deforestation are stopped immediately.

Therefore, the United Nations Environment Programme set “United for Land: Our Legacy. Our Future” as the theme for this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.

Now, many countries of the world are taking positive measures to prevent the desertification of land and drought.

The African Union announced a strategy for coping with the desertification of the continent on May 7 this year. The strategy for 36 countries puts the main emphasis on taking many-sided and collective actions to prevent desertification for the next ten years.

In our country, too, positive measures are being taken to protect forests and pastures while trees are planted a lot.

And efforts are being made to protect land and improve the use and management of it.

While effective methods are being introduced to prevent the decrease in crop yield by drought, the irrigation system is being perfected, including the construction of pumping stations and irrigation structures across the country.

Human existence is unthinkable apart from the natural environment.

People will intensify efforts to prevent the desertification of land and drought around the world.

June 17 is World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.