‘No life without land’, says campaigning athlete at UN desertification meeting

There can be “no life without healthy land as we cannot survive,” according to an Olympic athlete who has been attending a global meeting being held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, focused on halting desertification and land loss and promoting the restoration and sustainable use of land.

Asmaa Niang, who is from Morocco, spoke to UN News at the UN Convention to Control Desertification (UNCCD) meeting known as COP16 and explained why as an athlete she has the “responsibility to give back and inspire others to protect the land.”

As a five-time African judo champion and Olympic athlete in Rio de Janeiro (2016) and Tokyo (2020) she knows a lot about resilience and how to defeat adversaries, experience she has used to fight desertification in Morocco and across the world.

“Judo is a sport based on the philosophy of leading a positive life, it is also a sport of resilience,” she said. “So, I have a responsibility to give back to society by using this experience to inform people about desertification issues and inspire them to action.”

MINUSMA/Marco Dormino

Mali, in the Sahel, is facing desertification challenges

Globally, UNCCD says that “the future of our land in on the line,” as 100 million hectares (the size of Egypt) of healthy and productive land is degraded each year.

Droughts are hitting harder and more often and three out of four people in the world are projected to face water scarcity by 2050.

That loss of land is affecting people across the world and specifically nomad peoples in Morocco and other countries that Asmaa Niang has visited.

“Nomadic groups are a symbol of freedom,” she said, because of their peripatetic lifestyle. “In Morocco, Kenya and Mongolia, I have seen how desertification and drought has driven them to extreme vulnerability and changed their way of life,” adding that “their freedom is linked to our freedom, as we are all dependent on the land for our survival.”

©Asmaa Niang

UNCCD has been working with athletes since the Paris Olympic Games as part of its Sport4Land campaign, leveraging their celebrity and influence to advocate for communities affected by desertification and land loss, but also to highlight the local and global solutions to restore land and use it in a more sustainable way.

“Healthy land provides nearly 95 per cent of the food we eat. It gives us shelter, provides livelihoods and protects us from escalating droughts, floods and forest fires,” said UNCCD.

The policy makers, experts, the private and civil society sectors as well as youth and sportspeople who are coming together in Riyadh are focusing on a number of goals including accelerating the restoration of degraded land by 2030 and beyond.

“Restoring our land is about more than improving the environment,” according to UNCCD, “it’s about creating better quality of life, ensuring food security, and driving sustainable growth.”

Turkana County in the north of Kenya regularly faces drought conditions.

As droughts, floods and forest fires become more regular and intense across the world, population growth and unsustainable production and consumption patterns are fueling demand for natural resources.

By 2050, 10 billion people will share the planet and depend on healthy land for their livelihoods.

“I see people are engaged at this meeting,” said Judo Olympian Asmaa Niang, “and if everyone makes even just small changes, for example, changing their consumption patterns, eradicating plastic, then we can treat the earth in a kinder way and build greater resilience.”