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Desertification:
Heading for Catastrophe?

Desertification is a growing threat worldwide. Two prerequisites for successful interventions: ensure the local community is fully involved, and combine modern technologies with local knowledge

Richard J. Thomas
Richard J. Thomas is Program Director for the Megaproject on Improving Land Management to Combat Desertification at ICARDA.

The world’s drylands are often associated with perennial misery, starvation, and conflict. They are home to about 2 billion people who depend on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihood - and are the hardest hit by desertification, drought, and poverty. Dryland communities are often accused of causing desertification, by extracting resources without fully replacing them. But this is not necessarily true. Many dryland farmers have used traditional methods to conserve resources within their natural environment. Some of these methods are innovative and sustainable - but discriminatory policies at national and international levels have often undermined farmers’ capability and intent to implement them. Policies that encourage artificially cheap imports, taxes on the agro-economy to support urban priorities, and neglect of rural infrastructure and institutions, all hamper conservation of natural resources. Far from being a hopeless cause, drylands actually yield higher returns to investments than other areas. A better understanding of desertification will enable us to develop more appropriate, effective solutions.
What is desertification?

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) defines desertification as ‘land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, resulting from various factors, including climate variation and human activities’. Desertification is among the biggest environmental concerns today, globally and especially in drylands, which cover over 40% of the world’s land area. The UNCCD estimates that desertification already affects 250 million people, and has declared 2006 as the ‘International Year of Deserts and Desertification’.

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What is land degradation?
Land degradation, like desertification, is hard to define. It is complex and involves biodiversity, soil health, water resources, landscape, and agricultural productivity dimensions. Definitions can be contradictory, but degradation generally refers to a temporary or permanent decline in productive capacity of the land.

Dryland environments are fragile, and vegetative cover is sparse. Grazing, excessive tillage, or wood harvesting exposes the soil to wind and water erosion. The soil surface becomes crusted or ’sealed’; water runs off instead of being absorbed into the soil. Runoff also leads to heavy loss of the limited stock of essential plant nutrients, and the land soon loses its productive potential.

Can we prevent desertification?
It’s far cheaper to prevention desertification, through preservation and enhancement of soil cover and soil organic, than to recover degraded land. Sustainable solutions include better crop and soil management, increased use of mixed crop-tree-livestock systems, water harvesting and conservation, and judicious use of fertilizer and organic manure.

These and other methods have been tried for many years, but often failed. Why? Because they involve ’silver bullet’ technological solutions implemented using a top-down approach. What is needed is a more holistic approach, combining technology, policy and institutional options with the participation of land users. We must involve communities more closely in development planning, and motivate them to adopt improved practices. Governments and institutions must work with them and not for them. They must provide opportunities and the enabling environment that encourage and reward wise stewardship of the land.

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New consortium against desertification
To address these issues, ICARDA and ICRISAT have formed a new consortium - Desertification, drought, poverty and agriculture: building livelihoods and saving lands (DDPA) - comprising over 100 desertification experts worldwide. In 2006 the consortium was re-named Oasis to reflect a more positive picture of drylands.

The consortium framed two core questions: How can poverty in resource-poor desertification-prone areas be reduced? How can the poor achieve stable, secure livelihoods without undermining the ecosystem goods and services (natural resource base) that they depend on? To find the answers, the consortium will focus on six priority areas.

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Recent studies have challenged the common assumption that investments in drylands deliver lower payoffs than in favorable areas. On the contrary, the relative neglect of drylands in the past has probably left major gains unrealized, which are now ripe for picking. The dryland poor have demonstrated their ability and eagerness to learn, adopt, and invest in new technologies and practices that will help them grow out of poverty. The research and development community cannot afford to ignore these opportunities any longer.