{"id":590636,"date":"2026-08-20T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/590636\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:08:09","slug":"our-approach-to-drought-and-wildfire-is-economically-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/590636\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Approach to Drought and Wildfire Is Economically Backwards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">When we think about economic infrastructure, ports and power grids loom large. However, what stewards of the land\u2014including farmers, herders, and pastoralists\u2014have understood for generations is that healthy land is infrastructure too. It underpins livelihoods, food production, water security, the production of raw materials, and, by extension, the economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">In fact, roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unccd.int\/sites\/default\/files\/2022-04\/UNCCD_GLO2_low-res_2.pdf\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">$44 trillion<\/a> of global GDP, around half of global output, is moderately to highly dependent on natural capital, including healthy land. Restoring degraded land should therefore be viewed as an investment in economic resilience. An added benefit is that responsible management and restoration of degraded agricultural land can help <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp\/public\/2019rf\/pdf\/4_Volume4\/19R_V4_Ch10_Livestock.pdf\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reduce emissions<\/a>, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ccacoalition.org\/news\/uruguay-reduces-livestock-emissions-while-increasing-productivity-ccac-supported-pilot-project\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">agricultural methane<\/a> through improved livestock <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0020751918301723\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">health<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalmethanehub.org\/enteric-fermentation-rd-accelerator\/\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">feed quality<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">By 2050, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unccd.int\/land-and-life\/drought\/overview\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">three in four people worldwide<\/a> are projected to be affected by drought, with significant knock-on effects for businesses and supply chains through disrupted production, higher input costs, and increased commodity-price volatility. For developing countries, the challenge is particularly acute. The countries most exposed to drought and land degradation are often those with less financial capacity to invest in resilience. A drought that reduces agricultural output can quickly become a wider economic shock by raising food-import bills, reducing rural incomes, and increasing pressure on public budgets and foreign-exchange reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When we think about economic infrastructure, ports and power grids loom large. However, what stewards of the land\u2014including&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-590636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}