UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that the international community must work together to prevent desertification and degradation of dry lands.

The impact of resisting desertification can help in a wide variety of development areas, according to Ban Ki-moon. [un.org]

"Let us resolve today to work towards a world of no more land degradation," said Ban. "Let us make sustainable land-use a cornerstone of the green economy for poverty reduction and sustainable development."

Ban's statements came as he addressed the High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on Addressing Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought in the Context of Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, which opened here Tuesday.

"I thank the General Assembly for holding this meeting to highlight that dry lands hold the potential, both immediate and long term, to drive national economic growth and sustainable human development," said Ban.

The secretary-general explained that 40 percent of the Earth's land mass is arid or semi arid and that two billion people depend on dry lands for their livelihoods and survival.

He said that the world should work to resist desertification, both to help the many people that live on dry lands and to take advantage of the productivity of these lands.

"The world's dry lands are too often an investment desert, seen by governments and the international community as a lost cause," he said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

Ban said that contrary to common perceptions "not all dry lands are barren or unproductive."

"Some of the world's primary cereal producing regions are in semi-arid areas," he said. "Communities and businesses everywhere are discovering the potential of dry lands."

He added that dry lands are excellent venues for solar and wind resources and provide an opportunity to tap into biofuels that are important to future development.

The impact of resisting desertification can help in a wide variety of development areas, according to Ban.

"Timely action on our part can unlock these riches and provide solutions to a number of global challenges, from food insecurity to rural poverty, energy insecurity, biodiversity loss, climate change, political instability, geopolitical conflict and forced migration," he said.

Ban outlined some of the success stories of those member states that have been able to successfully combat desertification.

"From restoring ancient terraces in the Peruvian Andes, to planting trees to hold back the encroaching Saharan sands, from rehabilitating watersheds in India to using summer floods to reduce salinity in China, there are examples from all continents of governments and communities reversing desertification and improving the productivity of the land," he said.

The secretary-general also spoke of the drought in the Horn of Africa that has plunged the region into a food crisis, and in some areas, a famine. More than 13 million people in the region are currently in urgent need of humanitarian aid, but Ban said that such crises do not have to happen.

"Drought does not have to become famine," he said. "Too often the international community reacts too late. Too often decisions are based on false economies. In the end we count the cost not just in human lives but in the extra expense of responding to crises that could have been averted for a fraction of the price."

Ban urged those who attended the high-level meeting to act on desertification and land degradation issues, as the output from the meeting will be used at upcoming tenth session of the conference of the parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.

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