Land Degradation and Biodiversity

Because degradation of land and loss of biodiversity are often directly dependent on natural resources (firewood, food, building materials, etc.), it will have the greatest impact on the poor. People with economic capacity can continue traveling to a more environmentally friendly meadow when the deterioration of the environment hurts the development opportunities of the region. The poor people mean we can not go anywhere. Therefore, when the law to protect the quality and safety of the environment is enforced and the right to health is violated, you can obtain the law for the benefit of the poor.

IPBES Chair Robert Watson said in a statement, "Land degradation, loss of biodiversity and climate change are three aspects of the same central issue:" We can not handle these three threats alone All of them deserve the highest policy priorities and must work together. "According to yesterday's report, more than 3 billion people worldwide have adverse effects on land degradation. The resulting loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services may account for 10% of worldwide annual world production.

The transformation of land, the use of land to produce goods and services, is considered the most important way for humans to change the ecosystem of the earth and is the driving force for the loss of biodiversity. The number of land converted by humans is estimated to be between 39% and 50%. It is estimated that 24% of the world's land has land degradation, long-term decline in ecosystem function and productivity, and excessive cultivated land. The report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization cites land management as the driving force of deterioration, and reports that 1.5 billion people depend on degraded land. Degradation is either deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, depletion of minerals, chemical degradation (acidification and salification).

Soil erosion is a widespread degradation process naturally occurring on slopes in the event of erosion of water or in highly windy areas with poor vegetation. It is not itself a degenerative process, it may only be "degraded" if it can detect measurable effects of artificial corrosion. Since the naturally occurring erosion rate varies with regional conditions, it is impossible to define universally valid values ​​for defining soil erosion processes for land degradation assessment. However, in the OECD countries, the soil erosion threshold of 11 ton / ha / year has been proposed as a possible value that allows soil erosion to be regarded as an artificial degradation process beyond that threshold (Figure 1.1) .