Protecting our ‘most vital infrastructure’: Pushing back on desertification

As heatwaves are turning deadlier, fires and disasters are razing cities, and rising seas are erasing territories. One environmental crisis remains dangerously overlooked: the degradation of the land beneath our feet.Desertification, the phenomenon whereby fertile land becomes unproductive and desert-like, is spreading at alarming rates across the globe due to rising temperatures, droughts and deforestation. Alarming Sword of Damocles “Land is our most vital infrastructure — underpinning food security, water, livelihoods and stability,” stressed UN Executive Yasmine Fouad ahead of a major UN conference to tackle desertification, COP17, taking place in Mongolia this week.In that vast land-locked nation dominated by the Gobi Desert and semi-arid grassland, land degradation is very tangibly threatening livelihoods.© ILOHousebuilding in Mongolia: lacking access to open seas, landlocked countries must rely on other nations for many imports and exports, including construction materials.Around one third of Mongolians are dependent on pastoralism, yet nearly 77 per cent of their country’s land – sandwiched between Russia and China – is degraded. In 2023 and 2024, Mongolian farmers lost mor...