São Paulo – Arab and South American scholars specializing in arid and semiarid regions intend to work in synergy with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). So says the content of a letter disclosed at the end of the Workshop on Technologies for Coexisting with Arid and Semiarid Regions, held last week in Campina Grande, in the state of Paraíba. The UNCCD is an organization of the United Nations that orchestrates a series of actions for fighting desertification worldwide.
According to Roberto Germano Costa, the director of the National Semiarid Institute (Insa, in the Portuguese acronym), who headed the meeting in Paraíba, the letter of deliberation was written during the meeting and also mentions the importance of strengthening the mechanism of the Summit of South American-Arab Countries (Aspa). The Aspa was established in 2005 by the then-president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as a tool for establishing closer ties between South America and the Arab countries. The exchange of experiences in dry areas is one of the fields of operation.
The Insa is the Brazilian institute in charge of centralizing cooperation in technologies for coexisting with drought within the Aspa, and according to Costa the meeting in Campina Grande, the first one orchestrated by the Insa featuring Arab representatives, was very successful. Aside from discussing their experiences, participants from the two regions got to know field projects, such as goat’s milk production in Monteiro and a desalination project that reuses waste in São João do Cariri.
According to Costa, the desalination project, according to him, attracted lots of attention from the particiipants. They also got to know the cistern and underground barrage system used in the state, but according to Costa, it is not really new to them. The difference, according to Costa, is that the use of cisterns in Brazil is part of a public policy. Another conclusion, according to Costa, was that goat farming projects are very common in the Arab countries, as well as in Brazil.
According to Costa, the next steps in the joint work are to be defined. The workshop, attended by roughly 30 people, was one of Costa’s final actions as head of the Insa. He left the institution at the end of the meeting and will be replaced by agronomist and Federal University of Paraíba professor Ignácio Hernán Salcedo. The Insa head is government-appointed. The workshop in Campina Grande was promoted by the Insa, the Ministry of Foreign Relations, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) and the Aspa.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum