WINDHOEK: A four-day International Conference on Sustainable Land and Natural Resource Management kicked off here today in light of Namibia’s Country Pilot Partnership for Integrated Sustainable Land Management Programme (CPP-ISLM) coming to an end this year.

Speaking at the opening of the event, Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET), Erika Akuenje explained the importance of sustainable land management, which has a significant impact on the country’s natural beauty as well as other reliance on land resources.

In Namibia, land is a very important natural resource, because water, agriculture, minerals, plants and animals, and all sectors of the economy depend on the land.

Over the last two decades, Namibia has been faced with land degradation associated with deforestation, forest degradation and other conditions caused by overgrazing in communal areas.

The encroachment of rangelands by invader bushes, mainly in the commercial farming regions, is also one of Namibia’s environmental challenges.

The Country Pilot Partnership framework was envisaged five years ago to combat land degradation, using integrated cross-sectoral approaches that enable Namibia to reach its millennium development goal (MDG) number 7 – environmental sustainability – and assure the integrity of dry-land ecosystems and ecosystem services.