"Desertification" is a serious environmental problem mainly caused by human activities combined with environmental changes. Progressing desertification in extensive region on our planet has been affecting and will continue to impact human society including global environment and food security at present and in future. The United Nations adopted the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 1994, and the necessity of positive promotion to combat desertification was confirmed in the world.
Although desertification was estimated to affect one forth of
all land area and one sixth of all populations, their exact values
have not been clarified until now. Therefore, the Conference of
the Parties (COP) of UNCCD has repeatedly required the establishment
of scientific methods on evaluation and monitoring of desertification.
The Group of Expert was installed under the Committee on Science
and Technology (CST) of UNCCD in 2002 for improving the efficiency
and effectiveness of CST activities including the examination
and discussion on Desertification Monitoring and Assessment (DMA).
In Asia, the "Thematic Program Network 1 (TPN1)", the
first activity in Asian region to combat desertification under
UNCCD, is concentrating to examine the DMA. In Japan, it has been
recognized that the related researches for contributing and supporting
to these international activities should be promoted from the
scientific standpoint.
"Desertification" is closely related to natural and
socioeconomic conditions in each local area, while in the meantime,
there should be some universal processes. It is necessary to develop
the systematic methods for evaluating desertification by comparison
of individual activities in each desertificated region, even at
the viewpoints of evaluating countermeasures. Therefore, the synthetic
activities must be important by sharing the knowledge/information
in different desertificated regions on the evaluation/monitoring
of the present state in order to find out the effective direction
for combating desertification.
In this symposium, we try to compare the present state of desertification
and desertification researches in the representative Asian region,
to clarify the characteristics and problems of desertification
in common and in each unique local region, and also to examine
the direction of desertification research to be advanced in near
future.
Ministry of Environment (MOE), Japan
TPN Activities/UNCCD
(1) East Asia
(2) Central and South Asia
(1) Global Mapping
(2) Desertification Monitoring & assessment (Benchmark & Indicators)
(3) Desertification modelPlease keep 20 minutes/person for each oral presentation including question and answer.