Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Mushahidullah Khan is representing Pakistan at Conference of Parties session 13 to Combat Desertification in China.
He highlighted while addressing high-level segment of conference that Pakistan was severely affected by land desertification and degradation like many other countries, said a press release received here Monday.
About 80 percent area of the country was arid or semi-arid and was prone to land degradation. He further said two third of its human population depends on these dry lands for their livelihood.
He also said that the country has a fast growing population of 210 millions people. Most of the rural population survives on the fragile rain fed lands prone to desertification. Pakistan recognizes the seriousness problem of land degradation and desertification and has developed its national action programme to fight the problem. The government of Pakistan is implementing Sustainable Land Management Programme to combat desertification in collaboration with the provincial government.
This programme, he said was jointly funded by Global Environment Facility, United Nations Development Program and Government of Pakistan.
The session was started on September 6 and will end on September 16, 2017.
