NATIONAL ACTION PROGRAMMES ON CONSERVATION, REHABILITATION AND DESERTIFICATION CONTROL CAN BRING ABOUT MANY SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS, SUCH AS GREATER FOOD SECURITY, LESS MIGRATION TO URBAN AND MORE MARGINAL AREAS, HIGHER INCOMES AND A GENERAL IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING STANDARDS.
Serious problems of land degradation and rapidly declining production occur in large parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. They are caused by inappropriate land use or land management practices, which are themselves the consequences of the ever growing pressures on land and water resources and rural poverty.
Efforts at land conservation during the last 30-40 years have met with little success and there is now an unprecedented awareness of the urgent need to develop and implement sustainable land use and management practices that will effectively control land degradation and desertification. Recent experience has shown that sustainable practices will be much more readily adopted once land users perceive the direct economic and social benefits of these practices. Thus conservation practices must not only control soil degradation and desertification, but must also give economic and social benefits, such as higher incomes, a more secure food supply and overall improvements in living standards.
This document incorporates new concepts and mechanisms related to technology development and transfer, some of which emerged from the UN Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED). Biological and agronomic conservation practices are emphasized, as well as the farming systems concept and use of micro-catchments, since they have come to assume much greater importance in soil conservation than formerly. The adoption of participatory approaches, in which public and private sectors, local communities and land users are all involved in decision making, is stimulated at all stages and levels of the development process. The importance of the role and participation of women is also emphasized.
FAO, together with countries of the region, is proposing the preparation and implementation of National Action Programmes (NAP) on conservation-effective land management and desertification control. For dryland areas, the NAP will also include drought mitigation actions and should comply with the proposals of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
Guidelines on the phased development of NAP for conservation-effective land management and desertification control arc presented together with modifications that may be required in political, institutional and legislative frameworks to facilitate the successful execution of NAP. Capacity-building, education and awareness issues, the creation of NAP coordination commissions and regional and international cooperation are also considered. Financing strategies are discussed with particular reference to the financial mechanisms of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. The formulation of NAP must take into account other ongoing national action programmes oriented to the conservation, development and utilization of natural resources. The implementation of an initial pilot phase of a NAP, formulated through a participatory workshop, is recommended before developing a larger scale NAP.
The adoption of this framework for formulating and implementing NAP will give all participants in the development process a clearer vision of how best to achieve an optimal planning for the sustainable utilization and improvement of their land and water resources. It will also facilitate governments' requests for external funding.