June 17: World Day to Fight Desertification and Drought

In Italy, the territory shows clear signs of degradation, which manifests itself in different forms, from erosion to salinisation, from compaction to contamination and waterproofing. Calculating the main indicators adopted by the United Nations for the calculation of degraded areas, i.e. the state and trend of land cover, productivity and organic carbon content, in 2019, 17.4% of the national surface area is in a state of degradation . The areas are distributed throughout the territory.

Globally, with a synthetic image proposed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), every second the equivalent of four football fields of healthy soil is degraded, for a total of 100 million hectares every year and commitments have already been promoted for the recovery of 1 billion hectares of degraded areas by 2030. Among the most relevant political initiatives, the G20 countries have declared their desire to halve degraded areas by 2040.

According to Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UNCCD, “Up to 40% of the world's land is already degraded, affecting almost half of humanity. Yet solutions are on the table. Land restoration lifts people out of poverty and strengthens resilience to climate change. It's time to unite for the land and show the red card to land loss and degradation around the world."