Nations gather to ponder desert problem

Press, 31 August 1977, Page 8

Nations gather to ponder desert problem

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi Delegates from 100 nations nave begun two weeks of hard bargaining in Nairobi to decide how much money they can put up to halt the relentless advance of the world’s deserts.

“There is just one simple issue: We live or we die,” said the Kenyan Vice-Presi-dent (Mr Daniel Arab Moi) at the formal opening of the first international conference

held on the threat posed by the marching sands. Delegates to the meeting — officially styled “U.N.C.0.D.” or “The United Nations Conference on Desertification” — are now settling down to talk facts and figures. They have before them a draft plan of action to cope with desert encroachment on desperately-needed farmland worldwide, which is to be put, when complete to the United Nations General Assembly. Needed now are indications from each country of the money end manpower it can commit.

Many other United i Nation’s global conferences t on such topics as food, c water, employment, and! housing have led to few con-ii Crete results. Yet the dele-i i gates in Nairobi are hopeful i that their plan of action can t bear fruit if only because nations have already agreed < to some of the international i programmes. Argentina, Chile, Peru, and t Bolivia have agreed to pool 11

i resources to monitor the environment in their part of the world with satellite pictures, as have Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Twelve Arab nations have agreed jointly to manage underground water-supplies in

north-east Africa and Arabia. Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco are planning a green belt around the northern edge of .the Sahara.

The countries concerned 1 will have to find some cash, but financial backing is also hoped for from the United States, strongly represented lat the talks, partly because of two years of serious drought in its western 'region, and from Europe, the only continent apart from Antarctica, not afflicted by deserts.

| “Desertification” is a word (Coined only three years ago, when the United Nations began planning this meeting, after the disastrous Sahel drought in the late 1960 s and early 19705. ‘ It refers not to the cli-

mates, but to man’s contributions to spreading deserts. Over - grazing, over - farming, cutting trees for firewood, even over-irrigating, all contribute to enlarging the deserts. One conference document says as much irrigated land is lost annually through water-loggirtg and salinisation as is gained annually in new irrigation schemes.