Global land stewardship conference in Côte d'Ivoire Soil protection is the basis for food security and climate adaptation

Press release 10 May 2022 | BERLIN/ABIDJAN – Representatives from nearly 200 countries are currently taking part in the COP15 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The German delegation is headed by Development State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth. At the COP, the German government is advocating for the protection and recovery of fertile land worldwide. This is because healthy land with intact soil is the foundation for food security and for mitigating the climate crisis.

The meeting – or Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD, COP15) to give it its official title – will continue until 20 May. Germany, as the host of the UNCCD Secretariat in Bonn, has a special commitment to this cause.

State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth says: “We are facing the huge challenge of dealing with multiple crises simultaneously: hunger, climate change, COVID-19, and war and its resulting shocks to global markets. The continued loss of fertile soil – which is occurring all over the world – is reducing our resilience and our ability to respond to these crises. Each year the world is losing an area of fertile land the size of Bulgaria. We have to stop that. Without fertile land there will be no food either. The global land stewardship conference is about working together worldwide in order to maintain and restore the condition of our soils and ecosystems.”

Germany is actively involved through its development cooperation in efforts to support and implement very practical measures aimed at promoting sustainable land use in many of its partner countries: erosion control, tree planting, use of compost. Such efforts can help maintain the soil’s function as a water reservoir and a carbon sink, and farmers can improve their harvests and in some cases even substantially increase their yields.

However, implementing practical measures to improve land resources themselves is not enough. The right enabling environment is also crucial. One of Germany’s priorities for the conference in Abidjan, therefore, is to remove the legislative and structural barriers to sustainable land use, and create incentives for the conservation of fertile soils, for example via secure land tenure.

State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth says: “Secure land rights are the foundation for healthy land. Land users need legal security in order to be able to invest in their land. The only way that soil recovery will have a long-term effect and the prospects of the poorest people will improve is if the parties to the UNCCD act to secure land tenure and resolve conflicts around land use.”

Participants at the Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD in Abidjan

The UNCCD is the international Convention to Combat Desertification and it has been signed by nearly 200 member states of the United Nations. One of its main goals is to put an end to the loss of fertile land by 2030. Germany is one of the strongest supporters of the UNCCD. The Parties to the Convention meet regularly, similarly to the parties to the UN climate convention, in order to take decisions about the further implementation of the agreement.