Also available are an overview of Programme Element 1 and a summary of all elements of the UNEP Programme.
Food security depends on productive land.
More than 1000 million people live in these areas and are at risk from the effects of this loss of productivity on their livelihoods. Land degradation is highlighted in several Chapters of Agenda 21, most notably Chapter 12 which is devoted specifically to the problems of desertification and drought. It is expected to be in force before 1998. In accordance with its explicit mandate UNEP has offered to provide administrative support to the CCD Permananent Secretariat. Land degradation contributes to loss of global biodiversity, loss of the earth's biomass and bioproductivity, and to global climate change.