Natural Resources and their Management

Desertification
Seen Environmental Learning Information Sheet no 6
What is desertification?
Desertification is the name given to the spread or growth of deserts caused largely by peoples actions. According to UN estimates 24 billion tones of earth disappear annually into the sea, while in the last 20 years a surface area equal to all the farmland in the USA has been lost. The United Nations describes desertification as: land degradation in arid, semi-arid and subhumid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities These deserts spread not by invading good land from the outside, but through land some distance away deteriorating into desert. Desertification is a dynamic process that occurs in dry and fragile ecosystems. It affects terrestrial areas (topsoil, earth, groundwater reserves, surface run-off), animal and plant populations, as well as human settlements and their amenities. are affected by desertification while the highest proportion of dry lands subject to desertification is currently North America.

Source: Senior Atlas for Zimbabwe Red: Severe desertification Pink: Moderate desertification Yellow: Existing deserts

How does desertification occur? Where does desertification occur?

Land degradation occurs everywhere but desertification only occurs in areas defined as drylands. The drylands are comprised of hyperarid, arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas. These are generally areas that receive an annual rainfall that is less than 600mm. Aridity is the result of interaction between climatic factors such as rain, temperature and wind and evapotranspiration. The drylands make up 47% of the earths land surface and are inhabited by one fifth of the worlds population. It is here that the land is more susceptible to desertification. About 70% of the drylands used for agriculture are already degraded. Every year about 6million hectares of land become deserts and another 21 million become useless for growing crops. At this rate in less than 200 years, there will not be a single fully productive hectare of land left on the earth. Desertification affects all regions of the world. In Africa one billion hectares of its drylands (73%) The way people cause desertification through mismanagement and exploitation of the land is complex. Desertification can be triggered by many factors including the need to export more cash crops, resettling too many people on a piece of land, deforestation and poor water management. The most common causes of desertification are: Over-cultivation: this exhausts the soil using up essential nutrients and organic matter needed to grow crops productively. The soil is unable to recover.

Overgrazing: this removes the vegetation cover that protects the soil from erosion. Deforestation: destroys the trees that hold the soil to the land, the combination of this and poorly drained irrigation systems turn the croplands salty. Lack of education and knowledge: means that measures are not taken to ensure that degradation of land is avoided and there is

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Theme: Natural Resources and their Management Topic No 6: Desertification

no sustainable management of natural resources. These principal causes are a result of farmers trying to maximise output and productivity, through: Cultivating crops in drought risk areas Deliberately shortening crop cycles and reducing fallow periods; creates a greater demand for food. This in turn places pressure on agriculture in areas of drylands and often land is not given enough time to rest in between harvests. Consequently productivity decreases and the land becomes degraded, putting in motion the process of desertification. Drought and high population growth do not necessarily lead to desertification. Rather they accelerate it and amplify its effects.

Insufficiently using fertilizers after harvesting; Rotating crops inadequately or practising monoculture; Using intensive labour; Adopting intensive breeding and overgrazing with pressure on vegetation and soil trampling by livestock; Separating cattle rearing and cropping so that the cattle dung no longer provides a means of natural fertilizer; Lighting bush and forest fires; Cultivating crops along downward sloping face of a mountain rather than its natural contour lines; Failing to adopt soil and water conservation techniques such as terracing.

Global warming and desertification

In the last century industrialisation has transformed the world, increasing the amount of green house gases in the atmosphere. (see information Sheet on Global Warming) Due to this temperatures have risen on average by 0.3C and 0.6C, and in areas of drylands temperatures are expected to rise by 2C- 5C in the next 50 years. This will lead to an increase in droughts and drop in soil humidity, which could start and/or accelerate the process of desertification. Two models of desertification

Energy and Desertification

In the rural parts of many countries wood is the main source of energy for cooking and lighting. This can lead to deforestation if new trees are not grown to replace those that have been removed. In dryland climates forest regeneration is very slow due to the lack of water therefore increasing the risk of desertification. Renewable energy sources and gas and petrol should be used too replace wood consumption in these areas.

Population and Desertification

There has been a dramatic increase in the worlds population over the last 100 years as infant mortality and life expectancy have increased due to advances in medicine and technology. This means that the rate of population growth is high standing between 2-3% per year. Increased population puts a strain on natural resources and

Source: Senior Atlas for Zimbabwe

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Theme: Natural Resources and their Management Topic No 6: Desertification The consequences of desertification

Land degradation damages the soil, it strips it of its top layer and removes any nutritive and organic matter. As a result the soil is easily eroded and vulnerable to landslides. There is increased salinisation and soil acidity. The soil becomes ineffective for agriculture. The unavailability of water can be a consequence of land degradation. If there is low rainfall drought will ensue, forcing the inhabitants of an area to migrate, as groundwater reserves do not refill. Alternatively if there is high rainfall, the floods can be very destructive as a result of reduced or no vegetation cover A balanced ecosystem is paramount to the earths survival. Land degradation causes once arable land to become desert thus killing many species that once lived in that environment. The rate of desertification is so rapid that plants and animals do not have enough time to genetically adapt their species to the changing environment. The loss of flora and fauna also affect local populations who depend on these resources to live. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of desertification, once land degradation has set in it is very difficult to regenerate the land thus the situation only worsens. As a result the overall food productivity of a country decreases and governments fall into debt. Drought and poverty lead to rural-urban migration, whole communities head towards the promise of city life where conditions often prove to be no better or worse to those they had before creating city slums. This is threatening social stability and cultural identity and is not helping to alleviating economic hardship. There are an increasing number of economic refugees today, Africa alone has about 10 million individuals who have had had to leave their homes. People are also forced to leave their homes because of war and armed conflict. Refugees often have to live in temporary camps with little natural resources to survive on and poor hygiene.

This results in the over-exploitation of the available resources which only serves to intensify and accelerate land degradation of an area.

Desertification in the Sahel: a case study

The Sahel is a strip of land between 3-500km wide extending from west to east Africa along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. It is an area of sparse woodland made up of small acacia trees and shrubs where pastoral nomadism has traditionally been the way of life. Drought happens frequently in the Sahel but only this century has it resulted in severe desertification and famine. In the early 1970s about 250 000 people and 20 million animals died. What factors led to this? The impact of colonialism: Over centuries nomadic herding evolved as the most environmentally sound way of adapting to erratic rainfall, the Harmattan wind and disease carried by the Tsetse fly. Herders traded animal produce for millet and sorghum some of which was stored in case of crop failure. The slave trade and colonialism destroyed the traditional way of life by introducing cash cropping. Peanuts became the major cash crop. Unlike millet peanut cultivation encouraged rather than prevented soil erosion. Food production declined and hunger crept in. Misplaced aid: In the 1950s aid from France and the USA was given to governments to expand peanut and cotton production for export. As production went up, cash crop prices fixed in western commodity markets declined. In order to keep up incomes, farmers grew more abandoning fallow periods and extending cultivated areas into unsuitable pasture land.Livestock were crowded onto smaller and less suitable areas of pasture resulting in overgrazing. When drought came in the late 1960s there was no food reserve and too many cattle for the land to support. Both people and animals perished.

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Theme: Natural Resources and their Management Topic No 6: Desertification How can you tell if desertification is taking place?
A number of local indicators can be used to assess whether desertification is taking place. They include: The disappearance or reduction in the number of plant types in an area Palatable grasses disappear

Solutions to desertification
As a result of international concern about the growing scale and effects of desertification in 1994 an international agreement the United Nations Convention to Combat desertification (UNCCD) was adopted in Paris. Namibia ratified the convention in 1997 and by 2000 over 172 countries were signatories. The convention focused action on Africa and was concerned with combating desertification and mitigating the effects of drought. It advocated measures such as: Anticipating and/ or limiting land degradation. Repairing degraded land.

Major wild fruit, construction and timber trees disappear Preferred livestock pasture diminishes An increase in the numbers of unwanted plants such as thorny bushes Loss of topsoil and the formation of gullies Soil capping and the formation of salt layers on the top of the soil A decrease in the nutrient content of the soil

A reduced carrying capacity of the rangeland Resources start to diminish: Women walk further to collect wood There are fewer veld foods to eat Stock has to range over larger distances for grazing Overall this results in : Less fodder and pasture for livestock and game Less food produced from a piece of land

Raising awareness and informing those who are affected by land degradation. Improving the social context: eliminating poverty, improving health and educational conditions, developing and spreading knowledge on sustainability and importance of natural resources. Reintroducing indigenous knowledge.

Ways of combating deforestation

As a result there have been many successful programmes introduced across Africa aimed at halting and reversing desertification.

Source: Senior Atlas for Zimbabwe

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Theme: Natural Resources and their Management Topic No 6: Desertification

Several Methods include: Oasis irrigation using indigenous knowledge in Algeria

The creation of greenbelts and community forests in the Gambia The rehabilitation of the banks of the Thugi river in Kenya The development of rural firewood markets and controls in Niger

them little choice but to exploit the available natural resources. The absence of marketing and banking facilities mean that livestock are used as collateral therefore there is little incentive to sell them. Most Namibians do not own the land that they live on, this is particularly in the north of the country in communal areas. This means that they have no collateral to get bank loans with to develop their land, and therefore resort to over exploiting what they have.

Desertification in Namibia
Namibia is made up of desert and semi-desert with only 3% of its land falling within the subhumid category which has relatively good agricultural potential. Namibia is the most arid country in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of Namibia is already affected by loss of productivity in both commercial and communal farming areas. Namibia has a very variable climate and low rainfall while droughts are a common occurrence making it an ideal environment for desertification to begin and continue unless more sustainable land management is practised. Desertification in Namibia has been affected by many complex factors: There have been conflicting impacts of policies within the various sectors on natural resources, or lack of co-ordination between the different sectors. There has been centralised decision making which is often misinformed and does not correlate with specific conditions in certain areas.

As a party to the agreement Namibia introduced its own Programme to Combat Desertification (Napcod) managed by the Ministries of Environment and Tourism ,and Agriculture which aimed to Integrate measures to combat desertification into national policies and plans

Prevent more land from becoming degraded: Promote community based sustainable natural resource management Promote education and public awareness of desertification Strengthen drought preparedness Improve monitoring and research on desertification

Population growth has accelerated degradation as the land is over used and exhausted in order to meet the demand for food. High numbers of livestock bought to provide sufficient nutrition and increase income result in overgrazing. In both cases the land is not given a resting period to regenerate. Thus the soil becomes prone to wind and water erosion. Fixed settlements result in the over consumption and trampling of productive land by livestock. Namibians are also affected by socioeconomic factors such as the lack of alternative means to make a living giving

Through NAPCOD an approach called FIRM (the Forum for Integrated Resource Management) was introduced. This empowered any community to use the Forum to request support from outside agencies so that they could implement specific actions against desertification.

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Theme: Natural Resources and their Management Topic No 8: Veld Fires Important Ideas to Stress in your Teaching and Learning

Environmental degradation is damage caused to the air, land or sea Environmental degradation is now happening at a much faster rate than ever before. Types of environmental degradation include soil erosion, soil salinisation desertification, deforestation, bush encroachment, biodiversity loss, and pollution Causes of environmental degradtion include inappropriate land use, overcultivation, over grazing and pollution. Root causes include poor government policies, foreign debt and unfair land tenure. Solutions to land degradation require changes in policies, the elimination of poverty and technical solutions

Sources/ Further Reading

Wikipedia Encylcopedia Earth Health check for a planet, The Guardian August 2002

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