June 17, 2022 in occasion of the World day to combat Desertification and Drought
June 17 celebrated the “World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought”, more commonly known as “Desertification and Drought Day”. Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution A/RES/49/115 on January 30, 1995, the day after the draft of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the main purpose of this recurrence is to raise awareness on the widening issue that are desertification and drought by disseminating also methods of prevention and recovery. The urgency of the matter is getting ever-more real, confirmed by statistics attesting to how by 2050, droughts may affect an estimated three-quarters of the world’s population.
On the occasion, the Desertification Research Centre (NRD) of the University of Sassari, the PRIMA foundation, the Italian Society of Agronomy, the Italian Association of Agricultural Scientific Societies and Desertnet organized, in the context of the Summer School “SANAI SA TERRA” (in Sardo: “Healing the soil”), an event on the environmental contamination and soil restoration. Drawing from the focus of the Summer School, the event addressed, among others, the interactions between soil, plants and microorganisms in areas contaminated by potentially toxic elements as well as environmental contamination and soil restoration.
The EWA-BELT Project was once again brought as an example of joining efforts and investments to combat desertification and drought in, in this case, Africa. On the matter, PhD. Fellow Meron Lakew Tefera presented the key-features of the EWA-BELT project and how it intends to address soil degradation and desertification in the Sub-Saharan region.