About 50 percent of the world's grasslands are degraded, and overexploitation, misuse, climate change and biodiversity loss all pose serious threats to humanity's food supply and the well-being or survival of billions of people, they write. Dr Ian Little.
This year's theme for World Environment Day is “Our Land. Our Future”, providing an opportunity for everyone to reflect on the benefits of investing in restoring land and habitats, and protecting people and wildlife.
World Environment Day comes just weeks after the release of the UN's World Land Outlook thematic report on rangelands and pastoralists, which shows that around 50% of the world's rangelands (grasslands) are degraded. Overexploitation, misuse, climate change and biodiversity loss pose serious threats to humanity's food supply and the well-being or survival of billions of people.
According to the report, afforestation, mining and conversion of land to other uses are the main causes of grassland degradation and loss in South Africa.
Over the past decade, Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) has established more than 100,000 hectares of formal protected areas on private and communal lands, and promoted improved management and habitat restoration. This, along with the removal of hundreds of hectares of invasive alien trees in key riparian and watershed areas, has improved the provision of ecosystem services in some of the most climate-sensitive areas.
In this context, EWT has played a key role in restoring wetlands and natural springs within priority strategic water resource areas in the eastern part of the country.
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Ultimately, what is needed at the national scale is a paradigm shift in the management of natural areas, involving all stakeholders, so that objectives such as the land degradation neutral Sustainable Development Goals are achieved.
According to the International Development Institute, this paradigm shift could lead to higher incomes for landowners and create the conditions in which natural capital provides humanity with sustainably produced goods and services.
EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme found that the impacts of climate change and changing land use patterns are the main threats to South Africa’s drylands.
To address these threats, the EWT has promoted new opportunities for species and habitat conservation alongside the development of more sustainable economic activities, including new ecotourism-linked diversified income streams, that do not alter the landscape or undermine its potential to support future livelihoods.
This, combined with improving the capacity of local people to set up small businesses and related green products, is transforming the economic status of rural communities in the dry grasslands.
To make agriculture sustainable, it is recommended that a large proportion of agricultural subsidies be redirected towards sustainable practices and smallholder farmers, and that governments and the financial sector promote regenerative agriculture to increase food production while maintaining long-term ecosystem functioning.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) adds that investment in nature-based solutions needs to double to $542 billion by 2030 to meet global climate, biodiversity and ecosystem restoration goals.
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A recent UNEP study providing the economic case for restoring the Thukela River Basin in KwaZulu-Natal found that the benefits of restoring the basin far outweigh the costs. The research paper highlights the importance of incorporating nature into economic and financial decision-making, without putting a price tag on every species.
They add that ecosystem accounting can help in restoration efforts to halt and reverse ecosystem damage, contributing to the achievement of national development goals, but requires broad buy-in from across the private sector.
Through EWT’s National Biodiversity and Business Network, we work closely with many of the country’s leading companies to reduce their impact on biodiversity and ultimately aim to improve the ecological sustainability of these influential businesses.
To establish and ensure long-term resilient landscapes, EWT was an industry-wide leader in driving the first carbon trading agreement with private grassland landowners in the Eastern Free State province, and has since registered over 75,000 hectares of grassland with high ecosystem service and biodiversity value.
Revenues from sequestration of soil carbon as a result of improved management practices will fund continued support of sustainable practices for these landowners into the future, ensuring ongoing agricultural production and food and water security.
With the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity due to be held in Colombia this October, it is important that countries committed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework deliver on their commitments to provide adequate funding and support, especially developing countries, to implement national biodiversity strategies and action plans.
At this global event, participating countries will assess progress and plan actions to achieve the ambitious but important targets set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework.
To achieve the national goal of protecting South Africa’s natural assets, it is important that all stakeholders, including government and business, contribute and have a significant impact on the protection of degraded lands.
The importance of healthy soil and land to the survival of humanity and all other species on Earth is as important as clean water and unpolluted air – it is a constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to the health and well-being of all citizens.
Dr Ian Little is EWT's Conservation Manager. June 5th is the most important day on the international environmental calendar and since 1972 has grown in importance as the venue for the largest global awareness-raising event on environment-related issues.
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