Sands of Al-Dahnā desert, eastern Saudi Arabia. Photo by Richard Mortel/flickr.com

Imagine a planet where rain never falls and where every horizon stretches in an unending expanse of dust and sand.

It sounds like a distant planet. Perhaps a desolate Martian landscape, or the unforgiving terrain of Arrakis, the ecological wasteland described in Frank Herbert’s classic science-fiction novel and the recent blockbuster film “Dune.”

But are those dreadful visions just far-fetched scenarios, or looming realities?

Population growth, deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion and climate change are putting immense pressure on dryland ecosystems, undermining biodiversity and diminishing agricultural productivity, threatening the livelihoods of billions of people.

Last year, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) reported that from 2015 to 2019, the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land every year – a staggering figure equivalent to twice the size of Greenland.

To help counter this alarming trend, the UNCCD’s 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) will convene in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2 to 13 December 2024.

This year’s meeting in Riyadh marks a milestone: the 30th anniversary of the UNCCD, one of the three Rio Conventions—alongside the treaties on climate change and biodiversity. Established in 1994, it works to protect and restore land while ensuring a safer, just, and more sustainable future. 

Host nation

UNCCD COP16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will take place from 2 to 13 December 2024

Saudi Arabia, which is about 95 percent desert, is leading the way with its own plans for land restoration.

Launched in 2021, the Saudi Green Initiative aims to turn 30 percent of Saudi Arabia’s land into nature reserves; plant 10 billion trees; and restore 40 million hectares of degraded land.

The country is also leading efforts to plant an additional 40 billion trees across the region through the Middle East Green Initiative. 

The combined target of 50 billion trees between the two initiatives represents 5 percent of the global afforestation target – the equivalent of restoring 200 million hectares of degraded land, according to the UN Environment Programme.

Saudi Arabia has also partnered with the Group of 20 nations and the UNCCD to launch the G20 Global Land Initiative, which aims to cut degradation by 50 percent by 2040.

In recent years, the country has proven that land restoration can be successful in the desert. The Al Baydha Project, a regenerative agriculture initiative in western Saudi Arabia, has transformed the lives of Bedouin tribes through terrace farming and vastly improved water management. By capturing winter rainwater for use in regenerating the desert, the project is stimulating the local economy and serves as a template for other regions in the Kingdom.

“We cannot have sustainable development without environmental protection, and land is at the heart of environmental protection,” said Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha, Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of Environment, in an interview with UNEP earlier this year.

What exactly is desertification?

Desertification is a form of land degradation that occurs when fertile land becomes unfit for use due to human activity or natural processes, such as drought.

It affects almost one-sixth of the world’s population and 70 percent of all drylands, resulting in widespread poverty there, according to the UN.

Parched landscapes mean less production of plant food and livestock as water sources become scarce, forcing many inhabitants to migrate elsewhere in search of fertile soil.

Deserts are not always the sun-scorched sands and rocks of the Sahara or the windswept plains of China’s Gobi Desert. The largest deserts on Earth lie under the sub-zero temperatures of Antarctica and the Arctic, where lichens, hardy plants and microorganisms have evolved to survive amid the relentless polar ice.

However, these polar deserts are warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet, highlighting the urgent need to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Forests and trees

The most effective strategy to combat desertification is through the conservation of forests and trees. These natural barriers prevent soil erosion, protect watersheds, reduce salinization, provide habitats for biodiversity, and absorb some of the carbon dioxide emissions that exacerbate climate change.

Forests and trees also support local communities and Indigenous Peoples, who have been stewards of sustainable land management for centuries, by providing food and high-value forest products.

Forests have a special role to play in the battle against land degradation. This is because desertification is concentrated mainly in the world’s drylands, home to 2 billion people and 25 percent of global forests, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Perhaps the most recognizable symbol of land restoration in the drylands is the Great Green Wall. Involving 22 African countries and spanning 8,000 kilometres from east to west, the ambitious initiative aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tons of carbon and create 10 million green jobs by 2030.

Landscape in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso. Photo by Daniel Tiveau/CIFOR-ICRAF

UNCCD achievements

While global efforts to contain desertification have so far been inadequate to solve the problem, the UNCCD has made some progress in recent times and crafted an international framework for future land restoration.

​During the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification from 2010 to 2020, the UNCCD raised global awareness about desertification, expanded the scientific understanding of the issue and prompted many governments to adopt policies that incentivize land users to avoid, reduce or reverse degradation.

The UNCCD has also championed the concept of land degradation neutrality (LDN), which calls for a hierarchy of measures: avoidance, minimization and offsetting. The goal is to balance any new land degradation by restoring and rehabilitating other degraded areas.

As of 2022, about 78 countries have set 484 targets to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation by 2030, according to the UNCCD Data Dashboard.

Globally, countries have pledged to restore 1 billion hectares of land – an area larger than China – under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021‒2030).

Soil health

Ultimately, desertification all comes down to the state of soil itself.

“We know that about 65 percent of Africa’s soils are degraded, as are a third of soils around the world,” said Éliane Ubalijoro, CEO of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), in an interview last year. “The health of our soils will determine the health of our food systems, which will determine the health of our global population.”

Monitoring soil and land health is critical in achieving LDN. A new assessment tool, the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), is now at the forefront of this effort. It provides a flexible system for collecting data on a wide range of land health indicators to track changes in soil health, land degradation, and vegetation diversity. 

Implemented in over 45 countries across the global tropics, the LDSF has been used by a wide range of stakeholders, including government agencies, NGOs, and researchers, to cover a range of ecosystems and land uses.

Furthermore, CIFOR-ICRAF is building one of the largest libraries of soil health indicators, including a soil spectral library with over 200,000 geo-referenced soil samples. This expanding database is essential for assessing changes in soil organic carbon — a critical metric in evaluating land health and achieving global sustainability targets.