Every year millions of arable land gets degraded and becomes unfit for growing food or sustaining grazing. With more lands around the world facing increasing deterioration and degradation, the United Nations General Assembly declared the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification, which runs from January 2010 to December 2020 to promote action that will protect the drylands.

17^th June is marked every year as the World Day to Combat Desertification and seeks to draw our attention to reverse this trend. With the global population crossing 7 billion the pressure on arable land is increasing by the day. We need to therefore  make critical changes to secure the long-term ability of drylands to provide value for humanity's well being.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report of 2005 estimates that ?10% of the drylands suffer from one or more forms of land degradation.?  Poverty is one of the causes as well as a consequence of desertification - since poverty eradication is one of the key sustainable development goals , it is essential that we address the issue of stopping land degradation first.

So what can civil society do ? We , as young people , need to take the lead and planting trees is an effective yet simple solution which we can implement. Green Hope plants trees all year round and we did so again to celebrate World Day to Combat Desertification. We planted 100 saplings.Let us all work towards achieving the goal of zero net land degradation to make our dream of a sustainable future a reality.