Pacific Island countries including Fiji must sustainably use and manage their scarce natural resources as environmental threats like land degradation grow in the region, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) said on Wednesday.

The SPC made the statement as the Pacific joins the rest of the world in marking World Desertification Day on June 17.

SPC Land Use Policy Advisor Inoke Ratukalou said the Pacific needs to embrace sustainable development through a holistic approach such as ecosystem-based management.

"This approach would address interactions among land resources, water, air, biota and human activities, in order to meet the priority challenges of desertification and drought, sustainable mountain development, prevention and mitigation of land degradation, sustainable development of coastal zones, deforestation, climate change, rural and urban land use, urban growth and conservation of biological diversity," he said.

In line with the theme of the day - "Conserving land and water; Securing our common future," Ratukalou said desertification in the Pacific occurs in the context of land degradation.

Traditional land use in the Pacific is undergoing rapid changes.

"This transformation is mainly due to new 'opportunities' for land use afforded by an expansion of the market economy such as hotel developments, mining, and urban housing coupled with and related to a slow breakdown of the traditional agriculture-based land use system due to population pressures, urbanization and social and economic changes," Ratukalou said.

The expansion of commercial cropping into marginal lands, cropping on fragile soils without conservation measures in place, deforestation and burning of grassland are also causing land degradation, lower crop and pasture yields and growing food insecurity and rural poverty.

These trends will continue into the future unless there is systematic and long-term planning and policy development, he said.

Sustainable land management has been proposed in the Pacific.

This will involve balancing of land development and conservation, which over the long term can maintain or enhance environmental quality, provide adequate economic and social rewards, and provide sufficient sustenance to everyone.

Sustainable land management, or integrated land resources management, considers technical, physical, sociological, economic, and political issues in making land use decisions to achieve the most efficient and non-destructive long-term use of resources.

In other words, it is a package of technologies that, individually or in aggregate, contribute to sustainable land management.

"This system can only be sustainable if we empower communities to make good, informed decisions to sustainably develop and manage their resources," Ratukalou said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 17, 2009)