‘Desertification’ means land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. It is a gradual process of loss of the vegetative cover and soil productivity. Human activities and climatic variations resulting in droughts and floods are chief causes of this process. Desertification has grave natural consequences; it makes land areas flood prone, prone to salination and results in deterioration of the quality of water, silting of rivers, etc. What is alarming is that the land’s topsoil, which takes centuries to build up, if mistreated, can be washed away in a few seasons. Human activities that cause desertification are over-cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and poor irrigation practices.
The measures undertaken to prevent and restore degraded land are: improved early warning system and water resource management, sustainable livestock management, aero-seeding, agro forestry ecosystems, afforestation and reforestation by new species and varieties with a capacity to tolerate salinity and/or aridity, and human settlements. A direct cause of misuse of land is poverty, which forces people who depend on land for their livelihoods. They overexploit it for food, energy, housing and source of income.
Desertification is a worldwide problem affecting 250 million people and over 4 billion hectares of land surface. In addition, the livelihood of some one billion people depends on land for their needs and they are among the world’s poorest. Though desertification affects Africa the most, it is not a problem confined to that region alone. One quarter of Latin America and the Caribbean is deserts, in Spain one fifth of the land is at the risk of becoming desert. The growing severity of desertification in the Northern hemisphere is evident from, the severe droughts in North America and Southern Europe, China and other countries. Though a global issue, desertification needs to be addressed and tackled first at the regional level. On a regional basis, the priority in combating desertification should be the implementation of preventive measures for land that is not yet degraded, or slightly degraded. However, the degraded areas should not be neglected. In combating desertification and drought, the local communities, rural organizations, national governments, Non-Governmental Organizations and regional organizations are required to work in collaboration.
Programmes aimed at combating these regional issues, in summary, should include the following:
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(i) Strengthening the knowledge base and developing information and monitoring systems in regions prone to desertification and drought, including the economic and social aspects of the ecosystem
ii) Combating land degradation through inter alia intensified soil conservation, afforestation and reforestation activities
iii) Developing and strengthening integrated developmental programmes for the eradication of poverty and promotion of alternate livelihood systems in areas prone to desertification
iv) Developing comprehensive anti-desertification programmes and integrating them in the development plans and national environment planning
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v) Developing comprehensive preparedness and drought relief schemes, including self help arrangements for drought and designing programmes to cope with environmental refugees
vi) Encouraging and promoting popular participation and environmental education, focusing on desertification control and management of the effects of drought
Governments at regional level should strengthen regional programmes and international co-operation. They should establish and/or develop a comprehensive desertification, land degradation with a data base component incorporating both socio-economic and physical parameters. This would be based on existing facilities and additional facilities such as Geographical Information Systems where necessary. In addition, benchmarks should be set up with indicators to mark the progress in the fight for anti-desertification. Also, the regional governments should develop technical and professional skills of people engaged in monitoring and assessing the issue of desertification and drought, promote involvement of local people particularly women and youth through education and awareness building.
On a global plane, the issue of desertification was first discussed at the UN Desertification held at Nairobi, Kenya in 1977, but due to lack of support both administratively and financially, attempts to tackle the problem was crippled. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) recommended the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which was adopted in Paris in 1977. It is the first and only internationally and legally binding framework set up to address desertification issues. The convention is based on the principles of participation, decentralization – the backbone of good governance. The convention has now more than 180 countries participating giving it a truly global reach.