The World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD) was commemorated on June 18, 2014, in Bamenda.
Protect and nurture land for posterity is the lesson as curtains dropped on the 2014 Desertification Day in the North West Region. It is the way forward in the face of serious threats by desertification staring the world on its face. This is evident in poor yields and harvest, water scarcity, loss of the top soil, biomass, vegetative cover, biodiversity and lack of pasture for livestock.
It emerged from the World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD), in Bamenda on June 18 that desertification is a crucial problem which affects 20 per cent of the world's population in over 100 countries. It was the Regional Delegate of Environment and Nature Protection, Tansi Laban Bambo, who revealed during a round table conference that desertification threatens the health and livelihood of over one million people. Celebrated on the theme, "Ecosystem-based adaptation" with slogans that prescribe actions because land belongs to the future.
Tansi Laban Bambo took time off to prescribe the way forward which includes right interventions to turn the vicious cycle of climate change and desertification into a virtuous cycle of production in greenhouse gas emissions. It is also about protecting water catchments by planting water friendly trees, practicing sustainable agriculture, checking the reclamation of wetlands and avoiding deforestation in search of fuel wood. The creation of fuel plantations was also a take home lesson plus the planting of improved pastures for improved animal production.
The Permanent Secretary in the governor's office, Absalom Monono Woloa, challenged the population to turn full circle against land degradation and ensure that children inherit more productive land than ever existed. The message of the U.N Secretary General at the Bamenda event also revealed that a comprehensive and large scale approach to land recovery can create new jobs, business opportunities and livelihoods, allowing populations to not only survive but thrive.
