In Ulaanbaatar this August, Central Asian nations gathered under the United Nations banner to confront a slow-moving catastrophe that has already claimed nearly 80 million hectares of their shared land. The conference is less a warning than a reckoning — the degradation is not approaching, it has arrived, and in Mongolia it has consumed nearly three-quarters of the country. What the delegates are negotiating is not whether to act, but whether the will and resources exist to act at a scale equal to the crisis.
UN Desertification Forum Spotlights Central Asia's Land Degradation Crisis
Land degradation threatens vulnerable populations in drylands across Central Asia, affecting food security and water access for millions.