Desertification and Drought Day
Next: June 17, 2027
Look after the ground beneath us.
The story
Where it comes from
On 17 June 1994, at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, governments adopted the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, still the only legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. Later that year the UN General Assembly proclaimed 17 June the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought (resolution 49/115), to be observed from 1995. Desertification does not mean deserts marching forward. It is the slow wearing-out of dry land by overgrazing, over-farming, felling trees and a changing climate, until the soil can no longer feed people.
How it's celebrated
The convention's secretariat, the UNCCD, leads a global observance hosted by a different country each time, while governments, scientists and farmers hold talks, exhibitions and land-restoration events. Everyone can help in small ways: save water, waste less food, plant something native, and choose products that do not cost the earth its soil.
Did you know
- Some two billion people depend on dryland ecosystems, 90% of them in developing countries.
- Rangelands, the grasslands and shrublands grazed by livestock, cover more than half of the Earth's land surface.
- Since 1962 three generations of foresters have planted the Saihanba forest in Hebei, north of Beijing, on land that had turned barren, raising tree cover from 11.4% to 80%; it won the UN's Champions of the Earth award in 2017.
Coming up next
- Sustainable Gastronomy Day · June 18, 2027
- World Sickle Cell Day · June 19, 2027
- Father's Day · June 20, 2027
- World Refugee Day · June 20, 2027
- Fête de la Musique · June 21, 2027
- International Day of Yoga · June 21, 2027