Desertification around the World
Grand Valley State University

We as humans are like a virus; we use up as much resources as we can and when there is nothing else, we move to somewhere else. The problem is what happens when there is nowhere else to move to? Overusing scarce resources has its consequences and one of those consequences is the occurrence of desertification. In short, it occurs when a certain area overuses their water resource and over grazes their land until the water resource is gone and the soil can no longer be used for irrigation. On a global scale the amount of usable water and land exceeds the demand, but in particular areas, the scarcity of these resources is already a serious problem. Desertification is one of the greatest environmental and economic challenges we have faced. We must find a way to be more efficient and sustainable with our resources if we want to slow the growth.
Desertification is a very serious issue and must be handled accordingly. It is defined as the occurrence of climatic changes and human activity. Resources like water and trees ensure that land degradation never occurs, but for the past several years we have increased our consumption of water and trees leading to more areas suffering the effects of desertification. To better understand the urgency of desertification, “it affects about two-thirds of the countries of the world, and one-third of the earth's surface, on which one billion people live, namely, one-fifth of the world population” (Koohafkan, 1996). Millions of people all around the world experience droughts, sickness, poverty, and death just because they can’t sustain their crops due to the depletion of their water and land resources. Some countries have done this to themselves by over extracting what little resources they had and some places in the world are just too far past the possibility of becoming sustainable. But those areas in which it is possible for sustainability must be looked after with great ease or we’ll be finding ourselves fighting a losing battle.
Desertification is most seen in areas like the Middle East and Africa where population growth and agricultural performance has been an issue for a while. They starve and thirst every day just because they can’t sustain crops due to their land and the depletion of their water and trees. Some economists say that we are seeing people in areas like this experiencing malnutrition because of the World’s increase in demand for food when we have a fixed supply of land to irrigate. But how can they say we have a fixed supply of land when every year we are killing our land by overgrazing? “More than 50 percent of the agricultural cropland has been converted to nonagricultural purposes” (Tientenberg, pg. 231). For the past several years we have seen the population growth slowdown, meaning the increase in demand for food isn’t as drastic as it used to be. The problem is the availability of land usable for irrigation has declined. This means we are seeing more people every day suffering from lack of the essential nutrition and proteins but this obviously isn’t spread evenly throughout the world. Places like the United States, Australia, and countries throughout Europe have an excess of the proper resources to keep from land becoming degraded. On the other hand, places like Africa and the Middle East fight every day just for the basic essentials. In Africa, they experience the loss of vegetation due to a .7% annual deforestation rate. Africa’s deforestation rate more than doubles the global rate at which it currently sits. This and the amount at which they extract their water resource for crops is an equation for starvation and death; an equation they know all too well.
Though desertification hits the people involved in the area the hardest, it also has a huge impact on the economy on a local and national level. As I’ve discussed before, people in these areas don’t have the food security due to the unpredictable agriculture. Because of this lack of security, people in these areas create survival strategies to attend to only the most urgent requirements. The problem with this is that when people in these areas go into survival mode, it most of the time leads to a breakdown in unity among the community. People are only worrying about themselves and what they need meaning the increase in the extraction of accessible resources in the area; if they don’t get it now, someone else will. This and the increase in droughts and political crisis calls for a complete hold up of development in the area. The problem with these consequences is that it weakens the economies of the developing countries. This is especially true for countries that have no other resource other than their agriculture. When people can’t grow their crops, they can’t sell those crops. This leads to them not being able to support themselves let alone stimulate the economy by going out and spending it. Places affected by desertification are so caught up in dealing with the emergencies generated from this that they can’t make any possible productive investment to help their undeveloped areas. Desertification has great impacts on a local and national levels but it doesn’t just stop there. Globally, desertification is partly responsible for the mass decline in our biodiversity. Since it is one of the reasons for the destruction of certain habitats of animals and vegetation, it pushes the loss of livestock, plants, and species living in these frail ecosystems. The decline in our biodiversity affects the food and health of local people who are in need of these animals and vegetables that are being wiped out. On a greater scale, some of these plants are possibilities for medicines for specific diseases and with desertification continuing to grow around the world, these plants are becoming harder and harder to find. Though it may seem like there is no way of combating desertification, for years, people have been trying to make the world aware of the issue. In doing so, the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNCOD) was formed to help find ways to stop the growth of desertification and to make the world aware of what we are doing to our planet. In certain areas, they have managed to stabilize dunes so they can continue to serve specialized plants and animals that are very rare and endangered. They have also been planting trees in areas where the destruction of forests have occurred to help resist desertification from growing any further. Most importantly, they have managed to decrease the salinization of irrigated land by trying to decrease the salt intake of the water being put into the irrigated land. This ensures that soil degradation will be less likely to occur and therefore reducing the pressure of desertification. The problem is that UNCOD has no support. Sure they have managed to help out in some areas but we are still seeing desertification growing to new areas every year. Though they have been helping by educating the public, making them aware, training them, etc. they don’t have enough support in the direct control of desertification like field projects. Educating and making people aware may help in the future but that doesn’t help us out for current issues. If we want to combat the growth of desertification and help out UNCOD, we must start taking action by protecting our drylands when desertification is just starting to grow. Our government and us must be willing to change and become more sustainable by improving our agricultural and grazing practices. We must integrate things like land and water management and grazing where they are favorable. Taking this action involves the commitment of protecting our vegetation so that our soil isn’t affected by wind and water erosion. Also, we must start integrating out traditional practices with land use technologies to decrease the chances of desertification. But the most important tool needed is the capability of communities to be able to prevent desertification. A lot of places in the world are undeveloped and don’t have the proper tools to be able to even start this process. Countries that can help bring the resources needed to begin the process of decreasing desertification must do so and in doing so we ensure the sustainability of our land and the reduction of desertification now and for the future generations to come. Desertification is a very serious issue and we must take every precaution we can to ensure we stop the growth from continuing. People all around the world suffer starvation, sickness, thirst, and even death because they lack the proper resources to keep away desertification while there are people like you and me who take such resources for granted. People who have the power and the resources to make change must help to make the changes that are needed. We must do what we can to safeguard not only our economy but the planet as well. If we continue to ignore this ever-increasing scare we may not find ourselves hurting but our future generations sure will be.

References:
• FAO. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/sd/EPdirect/EPan0005.htm

• Enne, G. (n.d.). Desertification and environmental protection. Retrieved from http://www.istitutospallanzani.it/doc/390.pdf

• Dregne, H. E., & , (1984). Combating desertification: Evaluation of progress. (Vol. 11, pp. 115-121).

• (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.greenfacts.org/en/desertification/l-2/6-prevention-desertification.htm

• Tietenberg, T., & Lewis, L. (2009). Environmental economics and policy. (6th ed ed., pp. 231-232). Addison-Wesley.