By Charles Mpaka:
Malawi’s target to restore 4.5 million hectares of degraded forest and landscapes by 2030 is at risk of crumbling in the face of speeding land degradation.
Under the Bonn Challenge, a global goal for nations to bring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes under restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030, Malawi pledged to revitalise more than 4 million hectares by 2030.
Government data shows that Malawi has restored 1.8 million hectares thus far, more than 10 years since the launch of the Bonn Challenge.
With 2.7 million hectares to cover in the next seven years, a first-ever analysis by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) shows that land degradation is “advancing at an astonishing rate across all regions” globally.
Maggie Munthali, a research fellow at Mwapata Institute, an agriculture policy research organisation, warns that Malawi cannot watch land desertification accelerating.
“So far, the country has managed to restore 1.8 million hectares through various land restoration interventions. If the land degradation challenge is not addressed, we will not achieve our commitment,” Munthali said.
The UNCCD Data Dashboard, a compilation of details from reports of 126 nations, finds that between 2015 and 2019, the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land annually.
Sub-Saharan Africa is among the regions that have experienced faster land degradation rates than the global average. The region has recorded 163 million hectares of land lost to degradation since 2015.
“These statistics underscore the need for urgent action, as escalating land degradation continues to destabilize markets, communities, and ecosystems around the globe,” says the UNCCD.
Under the Bonn Challenge, Malawi committed to improve productivity of 754, 320 hectares of cropland by 2030 and protect about 18,515 square kilometres of forest reserves, national parks and wildlife reserves.
In its report to the UNCCD, Malawi noted the increase in population resulting into over-utilization of land, deforestation, severe soil loss, reduced vegetative cover, poor agricultural production methods and climate change as exacerbating loss of healthy land.
