Canada Alerts on Impact of Desertification

Canada Alerts on Impact of Desertification

Ottawa, June 17  –  Canada has warned about the effects of desertification on the 25th anniversary this Monday of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (Unccd).

Maryam Monsef, Minister of International Development and Women and Gender Equality, said in a statement that after the adoption of the document in Paris, France, on June 17, 1994, this threat could generate up to 135 million climate refugees in the coming decades.

Now, she said, the serious consequences of land degradation are known around the world: the resulting food insecurity, poverty, conflict and forced migration already affect 2 billion people.

‘As with poverty, desertification affects women and girls disproportionately to men and boys. In developing countries, women depend more on the Earth’s resources than men to supply the food, water and energy needs of their families’, she said.

She stressed that although women produce 60 to 80 percent of food, they do not have the same access to land ownership, technology and financing that would allow them to be more climate-resilient.(Prensa Latina)