As DELEGATES to the PEOPLE'S CONGRESS, elected directly and democratically by a trans national electorate, spread over 110 countries

AWARE that the spread of deserts on the planet is caused by:

• The desertization that has geological and climate changes causes
• The desertification that is caused by human activity

These two phenomenon have taken to day a worrying scale because on the desert borders these two effects are combined

WE NOTE that:

• This double effect threatens the way of life and sometimes the very existence of a large part of humanity
• Desertification is a global phenomenon. It depends of numerous political, economical, socio-cultural and ecological aspects that national concerned authorities are unable to manage
• Populations are most of the time powerless on their own territory to avoid that natural balances be badly modified (deforestation, lateritization and salinization of the ground, water and wind erosion)
• The impoverishment of cultivation systems through specialisation of cultures by regions and through excessive intensification leads in many cases to the sacrifice of vulnerable ecosystems
• Overgrazing, especially in semi-dry climates leads to profound and new perturbations of grass growth

WE ASK THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE:

• To make the inventory of ecosystems whose modification would lead to an irreversible soil or climate degradation and to insure its surveillance as well as its total protection: reforestation of the slopes, climatic forest for poor soil, vegetations that regulate the rivers
• To identify the land under threat of destruction because of human mismanagement, classify them according to scientific criteria where the ecological aspects will have priority over the short term economical considerations: ending overexploitation, protection from erosion, reconstitution of the clay-humus complex
• To list and classify, agricultural land
• To only tolerate intensive cultivation (with reduced crop rotation, use of chemicals and heavy mechanisation) if there is certainty that the quality of the agro-ecosystem is not badly and irreversibly modified
• To save hedgerows and where desirable, take steps to reconnect them
• To plan new exploitation of land only in the strict limits of its potential capacity; avoid to clear forests or steppes meadows but exploit them rationally in accordance with their possibilities of self renewal
• To ensure at least the equilibrium of the soil-humus cycles and a sustainable agricultural energetic balance sheet
• To join in the huge effort needed to educate the populations in their responsibility to the environment by giving them a direct stake - in its preservation (through reduced centralisation and the establishment of a fair system of exchange within each region)

Conscious of the inability of the existing nation states to tackle this problems whose solution must be found at the global level ,

WE REQUEST:

• That while waiting for the organisation of a democratic world federation, a SUPRANATIONAL WORLD AUTHORITY be created with well defined and real powers so as to start the reforms that will allow the earth productive capacity to be safeguarded in particular by conserving the planet top soil