WINDHOEK, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Namibia, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), on Thursday launched the country's Dryland Sustainable Landscape Impacts Program project, which aims to use an integrated landscape approach to reduce, reverse, and avoid further land degradation in northern parts of Namibia.

Speaking at the launch, Namibian Minister of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism Pohamba Shifeta said the region is facing extensive degradation due to deforestation, unsustainable land use, and production practices, worsened by the impacts of global climate change.

The project seeks to transform the management of production systems within Namibia's Miombo-Mopane Woodlands using an "integrated landscape approach" that is focused on avoiding, reducing, and reversing land degradation, Shifeta said, adding that it will focus on parts of the Oshikoto, Omusati, and Kavango East regions, where land degradation is greatest, over the next five years.

The project seeks to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) by 2040, in line with the goal of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

According to Shifeta, the project is composed of three components, focusing on the enabling environment, practical application of sustainable land and forest management practices, and strengthening knowledge, learning, and collaboration on LDN-related matters.

Speaking at the same event, FAO Representative to Namibia Lewis Hove underscored the importance of the project in uplifting the communities within the targeted landscapes and ensuring sustainable use of natural resources.

"FAO has recognized the ever-increasing need to ensure sustainable livelihoods for those drawing benefits from the various natural resources, especially across landscapes that are gradually under threat from land degradation brought forth by harmful natural occurrences and human-induced causes such as climate change, deforestation as a result of poor farming and other unsustainable land use practices, pollution and wildfires, just to mention a few," he said, while emphasizing the need to manage the environment sustainably to meet the needs of the growing population. Enditem

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