«LTackling climate change is not just regarding mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, but also regarding managing land sustainably. Our fight involves a commitment on several fronts, particularly those of the preservation of ecosystems, the safeguarding of biodiversity and the alleviation of the precariousness of vulnerable populations”.
These are essentially the words of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, addressed to the participants of the Summit on Drought and Sustainable Land Management, which opened its work in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire). A clear call for a global awareness on the part of African countries to unite in their fight once morest the dangers linked to desertification, with all the damage that climate change causes in a continent plagued by serious ecological problems.
It is in this sense that King Mohammed VI hailed the Abidjan Initiative, which should lay a solid foundation for establishing “the platform for sustained and practical mobilization, in order to translate political commitments into concrete actions” to provide lasting solutions to the advance of the sands not only in the Sahel region, but in the Maghreb as well. The latter sees many regions invaded by the desert, which, each year, swallows up entire lands, making them dry and unsuitable for agriculture and livestock. A progression that reaches in some places 5 km per year, involving millions of hectares, which is a frightening figure when you calculate the proportion of this progression for almost a century.
It is on the basis of this observation that His Majesty highlighted the actions undertaken by Morocco in its fight once morest sand pressure, underlining concrete commitments such as the upward revision of its national determined contribution to 45.5% greenhouse gas reduction by 2030, the National Water Plan, Morocco’s Forest Strategies 2020-2030 and the vast program called Generation Green 2020-2030. Without forgetting other measures such as planting trees which aim to slow down the advance of sand, irrigating entire areas in the grip of drought, etc.
We must here recall the National Action Plan to Combat Desertification launched in 2001 in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). A concrete action that has allowed the demarcation of 98% and the approval of 89% of the forest estate, i.e. 8 million hectares and an annual completion rate of 300,000 hectares, whereas it was only 25,000 hectares before 2005 To this must be added the preservation of forest areas, and the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems through the reforestation of native species on 730,000 hectares and the creation of 38 nature reserves and 154 sites of biological and ecological interest on 2.5 million hectares.
A gain in productivity estimated at 250 million dirhams has been made possible thanks to the biological and mechanical treatment of the land to fight once morest soil erosion in the rural areas upstream of the dams on 850,000 hectares. All these figures are expected to increase for the next decades, placing Morocco among the countries that effectively manage the equation of desertification and water stress.
Par Abdelhak Najib
