Concerned with the rapid pace of desertification around the world, delegates from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and government representatives are meeting in Turkish capital city Ankara to discuss global action required to reverse the process.

Overgrazing, urbanization, climate change, excessive use of groundwater, drought and deforestation are the leading causes of land and soil degradation – also called desertification. The process affects vast tracts of farmland and subsequently crop yield.

According to European Commission estimates, over 75 percent of the earth's land area is already degraded, and over 90 percent could become degraded by 2050.

With the present rate of soil degradation and climate crisis, global crop yield is likely to suffer a loss of up to 10 percent by 2050.

Developing countries including India, China and sub-Saharan Africa are some of the worst victims of land degradation, facing significant crop losses.

Policymakers alarmed over the magnitude of land degradation have decided to take a concrete step to control the advance of sand. Recognizing the threat, the UNCCD was established nearly 25 years ago to prepare a strategy to achieve land degradation neutrality.

This week's event from June 17 to 19 in Ankara is also to mark the "World Day to Combat Desertification" under the theme of "Let's grow the future together."

"We will look back and celebrate the 25 years of progress made by countries on sustainable land management," a UNCCD secretariat statement read.

"At the same time, we will look at the broad picture of the next 25 years where we will achieve land degradation neutrality," it added. 

The effort is to meet one of the UN sustainable development goals (SDG) to combat desertification and restore degraded land and soil by 2030.

China's role in restoring degraded land globally pivotal

More than one-third of China's territory is threatened by desertification, affecting nearly 400 million people.

According to official estimates, the desert in the country is expanding at the rate of 2,100 square kilometers every year, swallowing vast swathes of fertile land in the process.

Chinese researchers armed with homegrown methods, including the use of shrubs and checkerboard-like reformed terrains, have not only stopped the advance of deserts, but also started to green parts of the dry land.

"It (China) is the first country in the world which implemented the integrated law on Prevention and Control of Desertification," UNCCD spokesperson Yukie Hori told CGTN.

In its 2006 report to UNCCD, China reported that the process of desertification had been reversed from an average annual expansion of 10,400 square kilometers in the late 20th century to an average annual contraction of 7,585 square kilometers during the 1999-2004 period, she added.

Apart from controlling land degradation, China has collaborated with the UNCCD to assist countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt.  The Belt "runs to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean via Central and West Asia, geographically linking the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe," the UNCCD statement released in 2016 said. 

Many of the countries along the Belt are affected severely by desertification, land degradation and drought, and traditional and new sources of financing will be needed, it added.

A number of desertification control programs in China are focusing on securing livelihoods for communities living around degraded land. One project has successfully cultivated grapes in the desert to make wine.

In Shapotou District of Zhongwei City in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, trials to control the spread of the Tengger Desert through new innovative methods using algae, moss, and lichen are underway.