The Hidden Dangers of Desertification
If I asked you to come up with ten consequences of climate change, I bet most people wouldn't include desertification on their list.
Yet, desertification is one of the biggest and most underreported issues associated with climate change.
Today, desertification is approaching 30 to 35 times the historical rate. As the human population expands, so does the amount of land which is vulnerable to this growing problem.
The causes of desertification are numerous. From urbanisation, farming, mining and ranching, all these activities damage the natural environment through the clearing of trees and intensive farming which deplete the soil.
Add the increase of droughts due to climate change into the mixture, and you have a perfect storm which is contributing towards this issue.
All of this leads to soil erosion, which results in an inability for the land to retain water or support plants. With an estimated 2 billion people living on drylands, the potential for suffering is huge.
The European Commission's World Atlas of Desertification highlights the risks of this issue. It states 75 percent of Earth's land area is already degraded, a number which could rise to 90 percent by 2050.
It's clear if we don't act soon, we're condemning more land to turn to desert, resulting in the displacement of millions of people worldwide.
Thankfully, there are ways we can mitigate the effects.
Planting trees along the borders of the desert is an important way of stopping deserts from spreading further. Schemes like this are underway in the Gobi and Sahara.
This puts a buffer in place and replaces the vegetation lost from urbanisation and farming.
A similar scheme is proposed for the Sinai, which plans to turn the desert into a green oasis, stopping it from expanding outwards.
We're lucky we can reverse the effects of desertification by rewilding environments and planting trees. But we have to act now.
The longer we postpone taking action, the harder it becomes to tackle desertification.
Important topic that you have highlighted upon. Do you remember "Earth Song" by Michael Jackson? His music video & lyrics was quite significant back then and it should be remembered for now too. Desertification and Global Warming - 2 important factors that we must act upon now. Man is the biggest enemy to the Earth and Nature. In order to continue living on this Earth, we need to look after it before it is too late.