28 Jume 2006

Jordanian Minister of Environment in the middle during the Drylands Hidden Wealth Conference that was held in June

IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) holds Drylands Hidden Wealth Conference in Amman

IUCN’s Ecosystem Management Programme Officer Joachim Gratzfeld went back to Switzerland with a bag full of ideas to develop projects that tackle the problems related to Drylands after the two-day conference: “Drylands´ Hidden Wealth – Integrating Dryland Ecosystem Services into National Development Planning” held in Amman, Jordan.

The conference mainly underlined the wealth of drylands to change the still common view they are wastelands. The IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) in collaboration with WESCANA and UNESCO convened the conference that brought together over 40 regional and international dryland and ecosystem management experts.

One of the conference’s objectives was to get drylands and the ecosystem services they provide higher on the political agenda, and promote investments in dryland ecosystem management and restoration .
Drylands account for more than 90% of the land in Jordan, most of Sudan, 80% of Central Asia and 75% Kenya’s land mass. However, investment in sustainable dryland management is low, despite an increasing number of studies that show the hidden wealth of drylands.

Conference particpants during the sessions

However, The hidden wealth of drylands is becoming increasingly visible. Most of Kenya’s livestock lives from drylands, and half of the meat consumed in Nairobi comes from them. In Namibia, around 70% of the population depends directly on drylands for their livelihoods. In Sudan, arid forest cover amounts to 27%, but contributes 70.8% of the national energy balance and 33% of the forage of livestock. In times of drought and loss of crops, the Sudanese dry forests provide emergency food such as the fruits of Cordia africana or Boscia senegalensis.
These contributions to national economies are hardly reflected in current statistics or the national GDPs. In Sudanese official statistics, the forestry sector is contributing only 3.2% to the GDP. Studies by the World Bank and the UN Development Programme estimate its contribution at 12%, and this may still be an underestimate.
The gap between informal and official statistics on the contribution of ecosystem services to livelihoods is based on the lacking inclusion of “informal” ecosystem services and outputs (such as wild fruits or firewood), and small local markets in official economic data.

“The battle for development in our rural areas will be won or lost in the drylands. In all of our countries, drylands compose almost more than 50% of the land and it is a vital priority for policy makers, scientists, development practitioners and local communities to develop and implement innovative interventions for sustainable development in drylands,” said HE Eng. Khaled Al-Irani, Minister of Environment of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Jordan finalized its national strategy to combat desertification in 2006 based on a participatory approach. The Government of Jordan is undertaking various activities to streamline the combat against desertification. National and regional organizations, such as the Badia Research and Development Centre in Jordan or the Arab Center for the Studies in Arid Zones and Drylands (ACSAD) in Syria are developing integrated management approaches by bringing together stakeholders, including representatives from government, research institutions, and the communities – farmers and pastoralists.
Nomadic pastoralists often lack a strong voice in influencing policies and decisions on dryland management and development, despite accounting for an important part of the population in many of the world´s drylands. For instance, there are about 700 tribes of nomadic pastoralists in Iran.
Only by combining the wealth of knowledge in all sectors of society – scientific evidence from research institutions and traditional, indigenous knowledge from local communities – can we formulate a new approach for holistic management that finds practical measures and policy responses to desertification. Such management can turn the hidden wealth of ecosystem goods and services into the source of livelihoods for many in the world´s drylands.

joachim.gratzfeldiucn.org