Read at : Google Alert - desertification
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20080217TDY01302.htm
WATER—the coming crisis / Desertification, floods 2 sides of warming
This is the fourth and final installment of a series focusing on environmental issues relating to the Earth’s most important resource: water.
An Meirong, 50, lives in a town surrounded by clay walls that are meant to keep the sand out, in an arid region of Inner Mongolia, about 500 kilometers northwest of Beijing. “I can’t move out because I don’t have the money,” she says. The town once prospered from trade, but it is now virtually deserted as a result of the yellow sand, borne by westerly winds, that covers everything every spring. Vast quantities of sand have engulfed the town’s houses, and in the westernmost quarter of the town where An lives, only three houses remain. Administrative offices and stores were moved to a site five kilometers away, where the natural features prevent large quantities of sand from encroaching. Dozens of families have since moved there.
The effects of global warming are clear in Inner Mongolia, which has grown increasingly arid. This has been compounded by a growing population since the 1980s that has meant more livestock being reared on grassy plains, many of which have now been turned to desert. The Chinese government introduced a policy of relocating livestock farmers to other regions to protect the local ecosystem and prevent further desertification. Across China, 700,000 people have been relocated, including 70,000 in Inner Mongolia.
One 31-year-old man, who grazed about 300 sheep on a plain 210 kilometers southeast of where An lives, became a dairy farmer, keeping cows on a ranch. His way of life changed dramatically when he stopped living in a yurt and moved into a brick house. “My income was cut to two-thirds what it was. Living on the plain was free and comfortable,” he said, sipping a milky alcoholic beverage.
Meanwhile, Uganda was hit by massive flooding between July and October last year. In the Oonngora evacuees’ camp 250 kilometers northeast of Kampala, many houses were destroyed, with only their wooden frames left standing. “The water rose up to my knees and seeped into the clay walls,” said Immaculate Aguti, 23, as she held her 2-year-old daughter. “In a week my house had collapsed.” In the camp, 100 of the 510 families there lost their homes, and a well in the camp also was destroyed, leaving residents with no access to drinking water, which had to be provided by a German relief team. Aguti lives with her husband and two daughters. After the flooding, the family moved to a friend’s house in another evacuee camp that escaped damage. “We’re in a hopeless position,” she said. Across Uganda, 50,000 people lost their homes in the flooding. Residents of the evacuee camp were forced out of a mountainous area 100 kilometers east of their current location 10 years ago, after coming under repeated attack by armed bandits who would steal their goats and cattle. Stephen Obwalinga, 42, head of disaster management at the camp, said: “First the attacks, then the flooding. Where on earth can we go?”
According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, there were 4.86 million refugees and internally displaced in Africa alone in 2005. The commissioner, Antonio Guterres, said climate change is just one factor, and that the number of refugees and displaced would continue to grow.
In Darfur, in western Sudan, more than 2.15 million people were forced to evacuate their homes as a result of the country’s civil war. A U.N. Environment Program report last year said desertification resulting from lower rainfall and deteriorating agricultural conditions had led to internal conflict among residents and an increasing number of refugees.
In Bangladesh, an estimated 1 million people each year lose their homes to flooding.
In Algeria, desertification and rapid population growth in the country’s cities has led many to emigrate to Europe.
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(Feb. 17, 2008)
