The environmental and economic costs of not taking the necessary steps to curb the desertification process, and the consequent degradation of land, will be the subject of a study to be conducted soon by the Mercosur countries. The information is provided by the secretary of Extractivism and Sustainable Rural Development of the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, Egon Krakhecke. He took part last week, in Buenos Aires, in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP-9).
According to the secretary, who accompanied the minister Carlos Minc at the international meeting, the study is important because it will subsidize the bloc's strategy to cope with the problem. "This initiative represents a step forward", he says. Krakhecke also highlights the support from the Environment ministers of Mercosur, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela to the proposal made by the Brazilian minister and presented in a parallel meeting held on Tuesday, September 29. Minc defended the idea that the restoration projects of degraded and desertified soils should be considered actions to mitigate the effects of global warming.
With the agreement between the ministers, the expectation now is that the issue be addressed in the UN Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for December in Copenhagen (Denmark). "The actions of recovery of degraded areas, as in the Northeast of Brazil, should enter the international carbon credit market", Minc said in Buenos Aires.
During the meeting in Argentina, the Brazilian Government presented the actions that it has been taking to strengthen the fight against desertification. One of them is a combination of a great national pact for building a sustainable development agenda for the semi-arid region, where 11 Brazilian states are located.
The 1st National Meeting to Combat Desertification, expected to occur in 2010 in Petrolina (PE) and Juazeiro (BA), and the implementation of the National Program to Combat Desertification were also presented to the participants of COP-9. The Convention began on Monday, September 21 and ended on Friday, October 2.
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