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Climate Today
http://climatetoday.org/?p=267
Spread of Deserts to Fertile Land Requires Quick Response, U.N. Report
Lessons learned in permaculture offer some techniques for controlling the expansion of deserts, but major climate shifts can devastate even fine plans. Another source of plans is from a gentleman named Harry Hart in the U.K. who has contacted ClimateToday over many months now with his group’s proposed “desert re-forestation process” to restore deserts. Funding is needed. Check his website- http://www.globaleco.co.uk/ww.php.
Clearly we desperately need widespread land restoration that sequesters carbon, for we are being way too slow about stopping emissions. - Editor
Spread of Deserts to Fertile Land Requires Quick Response, U.N. Report
Enough fertile land could turn into desert within the next generation to create an “environmental crisis of global proportions,” large-scale migrations and political instability in parts of Africa and Central Asia unless current trends are quickly stemmed, a new United Nations report concludes. “The costs of desertification are large,” said Zafar Adeel of the United Nations University.
“Already at the moment there are tens of millions of people on the move,” Dr. Adeel said in an interview. “There’s internal displacement. There’s international migration. There are a number of causes. But by and large, in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia this movement is triggered by degradation of land.” The report’s authors say individual nations and international groups must collaborate to solve what has so far been an under-recognized crisis in the making, caused mainly by climate change. Water resources are overexploited because the poor have no other options, and climate change has exacerbated the cycle. Governments and wealthier countries must aid these populations to develop more sustainable livelihoods or suffer the consequences, the report says.
“The numbers we now find alarming may explode in an uncontrollable way,” Dr. Bogardi said. “Because if you look at land use now and dry land, there is the potential that we are nearing a tipping point.” The United Nations report estimates that 50 million people are at risk of displacement in the next 10 years if desertification is not checked.
The United Nations website does not have the report up yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/world/28deserts.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
