Presentation
Declaration of 2006 as International Year of Deserts and Desertification
On 9 February 2004, in its fifty eighth ordinary session, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed resolution A/RES/58/211 declaring “2006 International Year of Deserts and Desertification (IYDD)” as a means of creating greater awareness of the problem of desertification. In this way, the General Assembly underlined its concerns at the exacerbation of desertification, particularly in Africa, and it pointed out the enormous consequences in the application of the Millennium Development Goals and in particular in respect of eradicating poverty.
The designation of the IYDD coincides with the tenth anniversary in force of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The Convention was approved in Paris on 17 June 1994 and was open to signature, also in Paris, on 14 and 15 of October 1994. It entered into force on 26 December 1996, 90 days following the filing of the fiftieth instrument of ratification. To date, 191 States have adhered to the Convention which has made it one of the most representative instruments arising from the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, held in Río de Janeiro in 1992.
One of the goals pursued by the project (all of which are contained in the official document of the UNCCD: ICCD/COP(7)/13: Provisional report on the preparation of the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, 2006) is that of “awareness of desertification implications; profile desertification as a major threat to vulnerable ecosystems and to mankind, reinforced under the scenarios of climate change and the loss of biological diversity, with due emphasis on the relationship with food insecurity, poverty, migration and conflicts in the context of the Millennium Development Goals”.
As part of the commemorative acts of the IYDD, the Ministry of Environment has accepted the suggestion made by the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to organise a seminar on desertification and migrations. This event has a main reference in the International Symposium on Desertification and Migrations held in Almería in February 1994, organised by the Spanish Ministry of External Affairs and the Secretariat of the then Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the Convention to Combat Desertification (INCCCD), however the Convention was not signed until June 1994.
I International Symposium on Desertification and Migration (Almería, February 1994)
The first International Symposium on Desertification and Migration was held in Roquetas de Mar (Almería), in 1994, bringing together a group of experts with a double objective: First, to revise the current state of knowledge and to foster the debate over migration processes and their environmental background. Second, to draw the attention of both the scientific community and the decision-makers to the strategic and global nature of the relations between environmental degradation, desertification and demographic displacements, as well as over their trends and the possible actions to be carried out before the conditions become irreversible.
The Symposium was based on the precept that large demographic movements are not caused by political conflicts alone or by economic collapse. In many cases behind the migrations lie poverty, often caused by the exhaustion of natural resources and due to environmental degradation procedures, one of the most important of which is desertification.
The meeting included talks and discussions on three main issues:Considering that the goals of the first symposium are still perfectly valid, the II International Symposium on Desertification and Migrations is conceived not only as a sequel and a revision of the former, but also as a reference for this second Symposium, which also incorporates new approaches, such as the interaction between physical planning and desertification or the environmental problems inherited from the migrations dynamics, both at source and in the housing places.
Twelve years after this meeting, and in order to commemorate the International Year of the Desert and Desertification (IYDD), the Spanish Government, the Andalusian Authorities and the University of Almería, as well as the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) wish to offer the opportunity to tackle again the important existing links between land degradation, poverty and one of the most evident and important consequence of the desertification: migration.
The next II International Symposium on Desertification and Migrations is due to be held in the province of Almeria which has close links with the issues of desertification and migration.
The University of Almería has offered its campus as a venue for the Symposium, as not only does it fulfil all the requirements imposed by the symposium organisers but it also has the added value of a special interest in research and experimentation in technologies relating to the sustainable development of arid zones.
It is expected the attendance of the representatives of those countries affected by the migratory dynamic due to desertification problems, academic experts, researchers, representatives of international institutions, non-governmental organisations and interested people and institutions.