S. Gyeongsang to Host Anti-Desertification Conference

South Gyeongsang Province will host the 10th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, the convention’s secretariat said in Argentina.

The announcement was made at the ninth conference in Buenos Aires Saturday attended by a Korean delegation led by South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Tae-ho and Lee Sang-gil, a senior official at the Korea Forest Service.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja said Korea has restored 70 percent of its devastated forests and that South Gyeongsang Province will greatly contribute to preventing desertification through the hosting of the conference.

Governor Kim said, “Under a national strategy of low carbon, green growth, South Gyeongsang Province, which also hosted the 10th Ramsar Convention on Wetlands last year, will do its utmost to further develop the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD.”

The province and the national forest service will hold the conference at Changwon Convention Center from Oct. 24, 2011. The 12-day conference will be joined by about 2,000 people from 193 member countries. The province will be the first in Asia to host the conference.

As one of the world’s three conventions on the environment, along with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification is based in Bonn, Germany.

It was established in January 1994 to minimize damage stemming from severe drought and desertification by providing financial and technological support while pursuing sustainable growth. Korea became the convention’s 156th member in August 1999.

manman@donga.com