European DesertNet - Declaration

DECLARATION OF THE EUROPEAN NETWORK FOR RESEARCH ON DESERTIFICATION

Mitigating the effects of drought, combating desertification and alleviating poverty in drylands are challenges whose importance should be sufficiently recognized within the context of global environmental changes and sustainable development.

We, members of European interdisciplinary groups of scientists, active in basic and applied research on land degradation/desertification, directly related to poverty alleviation, intend to coordinate our activities in view of possible collaboration at national and international level.

Our major objectives are:

To identify and analyse the pressing problems with regard to drought, land degradation/desertification and poverty;
To review the state of the art of European scientific knowledge and know-how concerning this global problem;
To identify, through networking, success stories and best practices resulting from scientific research, and to create multipliers and accelerators for their implementation;
To identify gaps and develop innovative basic research in these areas;
To develop applied research in view of its use in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, thereby focusing on users' needs, interdisciplinarity and integration;
To strengthen and support European research capacities in order to promote scientific cooperation;
To structure and facilitate the communication and transfer of know-how and technologies within the European DesertNet and towards affected countries;
To establish and intensify linkages with research partners inside and outside Europe;
To stimulate application of appropriate research findings in the drylands through participatory processes, involving civil society, NGOs and CBOs;
To establish a mechanism for effective and successful policy advice and for public awareness raising.

For this purpose, the European DesertNet network - basically an European initiative - is open to all scientists within and outside Europe wanting to join it and collaborate with it. We support the UN environmental conventions, in particular the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). We intend to strengthen the cooperation with its scientific body, the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) and we are open to collaborate with all other UNCCD panels or groups, in need of scientific input. We are also looking forward to collaboration with international organisations, programmes and agencies in need of scientific information or advice. We are prepared to put our knowledge and understanding to the service of combating desertification and creating sustainable livelihoods in drylands through sound scientific work.