Prevention vital against desertification: UN expert

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2006

TOKYO (AFP) — Parched Asian nations such as Mongolia and China must act swiftly to prevent the creeping spread of deserts which costs the global economy 42 billion dollars a year, a UN expert has said. "Regaining lost land is too expensive. Prevention is the only solution for countries that do not have enough resources," said Hama Araba Diallo, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Israel was one example of a country that had managed to regain land lost to spreading desert but at a high technological cost, the UN expert said. "For farmers in Mali or Mongolia, we can only say 'please protect that topsoil from washing away'," he told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, adding that thousands of years were needed for...