Earth Equity News

U.N. Launches Fight to Save Planet from Expanding Deserts. AFP, August 17, 2010. "The United Nations has launched a campaign to save the planet from deserts that are threatening a third of the planet along with the livelihoods of more than a billion people. The decade-long initiative aims to 'reverse and prevent desertification' and to soften the effects of drought in affected areas 'to support poverty reduction and environmental sustainability,' Luc Gnacadja, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), said. Parched land and deserts today are home to one in three people on Earth, or 2.1 billion people, 90% of whom are in developing nations. One billion people struggle to find enough food to survive in such inhospitable terrain."