Follow our full coverage of UNCCD COP16Â on ThinkLandscape.
What are some of the most basic things we need to survive?
You’re probably thinking of food, water and shelter. But those three basic needs ultimately depend on one additional resource – one that’s becoming increasingly degraded by humans.
That’s right: land.
Right now, country delegates are in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP16 – the world’s largest event on preventing land degradation in 2024.
Also at the conference are more than 23,000 participants who have journeyed to Riyadh from across the globe, many of them representing communities on the frontline of the global land crisis.
We caught up with a few of them to learn what land means to them, and why it’s so crucial that we act now to keep it healthy and fertile before it’s too late.
Land represents the past, the present and the future.
It’s the one thing – the shared heritage – that everybody has in common. It doesn’t matter what your background is or country you’re from.
I’m fighting to protect land for future generations, just as my predecessors did for me to be able to enjoy it right now.
Elizabeth, negotiator, Haiti
Land means home. It means future.
It means something stable and stable that you want to protect – something you stand on, that you rely on.
Noura, project manager, Saudi Arabia
Land means opportunity. It’s a big opportunity for women.
In Côte d’Ivoire, we’re trying to foster growth for women, especially through crops like shea, but we tend to forget that it comes from a piece of land.
In countries like mine, women are the ones transforming the raw product, but they don’t have access to land.
Myriam, gender specialist,
Côte d’Ivoire
One of the best quotes I heard recently was: ‘land is the glue that binds us all together.’
That made me realize: land is everywhere; it’s a resource that’s present all around us.
And yet, we don’t tend to even think about it.
Nikita, water entrepreneur
Land is sustenance.
It’s where our food comes from, the clothes we wear, where our houses are built. It’s where we’re rooted to.
Land is life.
Apurva, project coordinator
Finally…
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