Trade and Sustainable Land Management in Drylands
Trade and Sustainable Land Management Series • Selected Issue Briefs
Drylands cover 40 percent of the earth’s land surface and are home to more than two billion people – a third of the world’s population – whose majority suffers from the poorest economic conditions. While dryland areas are located in rich and poor countries alike, a large part of dryland populations lags far behind the rest of the world in human well-being and development indicators.
Dryland regions are among the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems. This vulnerability is further exacerbated by human activities such as unsustainable land use. Land degradation takes many forms, including depletion of soil nutrients, salinisation, agrochemical pollution, soil erosion, plant degradation (resulting mainly from inappropriate agricultural practices), overgrazing and deforestation. All of these types of degradation cause declines in the productive capacity of the land, eventually reducing yields. Land degradation is perhaps the most threatening ecosystem change directly affecting the livelihoods of people living in arid areas. The degradation of ecosystem services in drylands could threaten future improvements in human well-being and even reverse gains in some regions.
Drylands provide critical ecosystem services on which humanity relies for food, shelter and livelihoods. They offer a variety of land use options from hunting and gathering to pastoralism, from ranching to farming and from cultivation to the provision of dryland ecosystem services including tourism. Many of our major food crops, such as wheat, barley, sorghum, millet and cotton as well as animal species such as horses, sheep, goats, cows, camels and lamas originated in drylands. Medicinal plants in these regions also supply essential products for our health. One third of plant-based drugs in the United States are derived from dryland biodiversity.
Despite this potential, international trade has not been able to fully support social and economic development, increase income generation or significantly improve livelihoods in drylands. Major dryland commodities such as cotton face a number of distortions in international markets arising from tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers, while niche products such as medicinal plants, face nontariff barriers. Moreover, dryland developing countries generally lack supply-side capacities including investment, marketing and market access tools to be able to derive meaningful benefits from trade. While trade flows at the national, regional and international levels can act as incentives to foster economic growth and sustainable land management, they can also lead to changes in land ownership and use with systemic results on both the fertility of land and the populations who live on it. International trade regimes and related government policies, macroeconomic reforms and a focus on raising agricultural production for exports can affect, directly or indirectly, the resilience of dryland ecosystems.
These factors can lead to inefficient and wasteful use of land and water resources, inappropriate crop intensification – especially under monocropping systems – expansion of agriculture to marginal lands and the use of farm machinery and agronomic practices that are not suitable for local soil and water conditions.
While a range of agricultural crops are grown under intensive production systems, countries could explore opportunities for diversifying trade into products which may allow them to promote a more sustainable use of natural resources, as well as looking at ways to improve the environmental and social impacts of those products which are currently traded in large quantities.
Emerging markets for natural products, such as aloe or gum arabic are creating many new opportunities. However, gains from these opportunities still remain very limited because of the lack of basic infrastructure, investment capital, research and development and an adequate policy framework that regulates these markets at national, regional and international levels. Building an enabling environment that would allow these markets to grow, would create incentives for increasing investment in the sustainable use and management of land and natural resources, including by the private sector and local communities.
Reforming the current distortions in global agricultural trade, especially those related to agricultural subsidies, is crucial to address problems in the relationship between land degradation and trade. Certain types of agricultural subsidies, for example those directly linked to production, are believed to have a harmful impact on sustainable development – including on sustainable land use. Tariff escalation is also known to prevent the development of industries focusing on processed products which are often less land-intensive than agriculture.
The international trade regime offers a number of opportunities that could contribute positively to sustainable land management. In particular, the process of trade liberalisation and trade rule-making under the World Trade Organization (WTO) including in the areas of special products, environmental goods and services (EGS), full duty-free and quota-free market access for least-developed countries (LDCs) and the reform of production and trade distorting subsidies, could provide opportunities for promoting investment in sustainable land management.
This publication aims to provide a wide range of perspectives from various stakeholders on how trade policies and processes could contribute to advancing the objectives of sustainable land management and sustainable development in dryland regions of the world. It is also meant to provide an intellectual input into the ongoing process towards the ten-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (2008-2018). We hope that readers will find these papers stimulating reading and that they will inspire further reflection and debate.