ISSUE 41: MARCH-MAY 2006
network of research and training centres/programmes
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UNU tackles land
degradation in the Balkans
UN University is consolidating its international reputation for targeted capacity building, research and
networking in sustainable land management (SLM) by playing a leading role
on several regional and global projects.
Now the Washington-based Global Environment Facility (GEF) has approved another UNU/UNEP/GEF project on Community Based Rehabilitation of Degraded Land in Balkan countries of Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. The development phased was launched in January.
The project aims to address the causes and negative impacts of land degradation on the structure and functional integrity of vulnerable and important ecosystems in the southern Balkans and on the livelihoods of the local communities who depend on them.
To achieve that goal the project will need to overcome the two major barriers to SLM in the region: limited integration of local knowledge and capacities in the design and implementation of SLM strategies and interventions; and the lack of mechanisms for transfer of best practices and approaches to sustainable community-based land management at the sub-regional level.
Few parts of the world have demonstrated these problems as catastrophically as the Balkan region, where the situation is exacerbated by rapid political change, economic transition and ever-widening divisions among social groups.
Although the hilly/mountainous topography of the Balkan peninsula is a factor, the main causes of the region's accelerated erosion are man-made. Land degradation ranks among the most serious threats to ecosystems, peoples and livelihoods in the global environment. It reduces the productive capacity of existing land resources and it encourages inhabitants of affected areas to move and degrade more ecosystems elsewhere. Land degradation, mainly soil erosion and soil degradation, are usually the result of poor land husbandry exacerbated by an array of factors that often include using land on steep slopes, erratic rainfall, poverty, failing social infrastructures, adverse policy environments and social conflict.
© 2006 United Nations University