The lands of Asia and the Pacific are under intense pressure. They include some of the most intensively cultivated land on the planet, and they support some of the highest population densities known. In most of the region, population is expanding fast, and the demands of an increasingly urban and grooving population are removing important areas of agricultural land from production.
Under such pressure, land degradation has become common and is reducing the productivity of which the region is so proud. The current situation is not sustainable and, though strenuous efforts have been made to halt degradation in many countries, they have met with limited success. As a result, the economies of many countries in the region - which depend essentially on their forests, croplands and pastures - have suffered: land degradation is estimated to be costing the countries of the region many tens of billions of dollars a year.
Yet land degradation can be prevented and even reversed. Soil conditions can be improved, and productivity restored. The region's lands could be made to support more people, and to guarantee a secure future for the rural population.
The importance of this issue was highlighted in FAO's 21st Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, held in New Delhi in 1992. One of the recommendations of this conference was that FAO should continue to provide assistance to member countries in formulating national strategies and policies to arrest land degradation. FAO has followed up this recommendation. One result is the Framework for Action outlined in this publication.
This proposal suggests a new approach designed to capture the interest and imaginations of rural people throughout the region. It has been developed largely as a result of Technical Cooperation between Developing Countries (TCDC) and it is expected that its execution will also depend heavily on TCDC.
The first section outlines the magnitude of the threat. It explains that while most traditional land-use systems did little harm to the environment, few of them have stood up to the pressures of expanding populations and more intensive land use. Past approaches to this problem were based almost exclusively on physical measures, such as creating mechanical barriers to soil movement. They were expensive and provided few short-term benefits to the land users themselves. They attacked the symptoms of the problem, not the causes. As a result, most were poorly maintained, and fell into disrepair.
The approach advocated in the Framework for Action is based on promoting sound land-use management principles which, because they produce increased yields and profits within one or two seasons, encourage widespread participation. Physical conservation measures will still be needed, but greater emphasis will be placed on increasing and maintaining the land's vegetative cover through innovative agronomic and forestry techniques, and introducing sound management practices. This approach protects the land surface from wind and water erosion, and improves soil conditions by increasing fertility, organic matter content and moisture storage capacity. As soils improve, productivity rises, profits increase and the risk of crop failure recedes.
Few farmers have had the time or the means to adapt their methods to today's conditions of land scarcity. Land mismanagement has become widespread. National action is needed to identify its causes and to suggest solutions based on techniques designed both to raise yields and to prevent degradation. National resources - money and manpower - must then be used to encourage the widest possible level of participation in these schemes and to develop conservation institutions, at both government and non-governmental level, to expedite national conservation plans. It is important that the actions of all government agencies involved in conservation are carefully integrated.
Increased research and advanced training are among the many requirements for tackling land degradation. These are often best advanced regionally and there are a number of successful precedents for this.
Finally, a mechanism is described to enable nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donors and financing agencies to cooperate in formulating policies and devising programmes that will work efficiently and effectively. Experience has shown that mechanisms which are controlled by governments but which invite widespread participation at a very early stage are the most likely to succeed.