ZIMBABWE will today join the world in commemorating the World Day to Combat Desertification in Mashonaland Central’s Mbire district. The day, commemorated on June 17 every year, was set aside after the international community recognised that desertification was a major economic, social and environmental problem the world over. In 1977, the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNCOD) adopted a Plan of Action to Combat Desertification (PACD). Unfortunately, despite this and other efforts, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded in 1991 that the problem of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas had intensified, although there were ‘local examples of success’. How to tackle desertification was still a major concern for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The conference therefore supported a new integrated approach to the problem, emphasising action to promote sustainable development at community level. It called on the United Nations General Assembly to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INCD) to prepare, by June 1994, a Convention to Combat Desertification, particularly in Africa. The convention was adopted in Paris on June 17 1994 and was signed on October 14 and 15 1994. It entered into force on December 26 1996, 90 days after the 50th ratification was received. As at August 2009, 193 countries were parties to the convention. For the reasons stated above, Zimbabwe will hold its celebrations in Mashonaland Central this year to help improve awareness on desertification. In an interview with The Patriot, Environmental Management Agency (EMA) environment education and publicity manager Steady Kangata said: “The celebrations will be held in Mashonaland Central because it’s a fairly dry area. “We can be able to learn how the local community had managed to find solutions without lots of external help so we can tap knowledge from that,” said Kangata. “This year’s theme is ‘Forests — Keep our dryland working’ and its thrust stems from the fact that this year has been declared by the United Nations as the Year of Forests.” “A lot of community activities will be done during the celebrations, including treeplanting of indigenous trees like the baobab and the masawu and testimonials from the locals. “This will enable us to raise awareness on how people can take care of the environment for present and future generations to derive livelihoods from trees.” He added that this is being done to also assist the communities to accept ownership of trees for better environmental management. “The whole idea is that communities should be able to assume ownership of their trees and environment so that the environment can be easily managed,” he said.