21. United Nations Division For Sustainable Development- Sustainable Development Iss Deserts are among the fragile ecosystems addressed by Agenda 21, and combating desertification and drought is the subject of Chapter 12. http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/desertification/desert.htm

Home About Us Commission on Sustainable ... Search Sustainable Development Topics Desertification and Drought Deserts are among the "fragile ecosystems" addressed by Agenda 21, and "combating desertification and drought" is the subject of Chapter 12 . Desertification includes land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification affects as much as one-sixth of the world's population, seventy percent of all drylands, and one-quarter of the total land area of the world. It results in widespread poverty as well as in the degradation of billion hectares of rangeland and cropland. In addition to addressing desertification and drought in Agenda 21, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) also called upon the United Nations General Assembly to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INCD) to prepare, by June 1994, an international convention to combat desertification in those countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa

22. IISD Linkages - Forest, Desertification, Land Other Forest Meetings Covered by IISD Reporting Services. desertification Meetings covered by ENB. Other desertification Meetings Covered by IISD Reporting http://www.iisd.ca/process/forest_desertification_land.htm

Forests, Desertification, Land News the Linkages team the ENB team Funders ... Links LINKAGES Recent meetings Upcoming meetings Media reports Key publications ... Linkages Update Global Forest Policy Introduction ENB archives CCD Introduction ENB archives Relevant links UN Forests ITTO UNCCD Links to other resources Click on the links to view IISD Reporting Services' daily coverage of the following meetings. Many include a summary and analysis of each meeting, plus digital coverage with photographs and Real Audio recordings. COVERAGE OF MEETINGS ON FORESTS, DESERTIFICATION OR LAND ISSUES Forests Meetings covered by ENB Other Forest Meetings Covered by IISD Reporting Services Desertification Meetings covered by ENB Other Desertification Meetings Covered by IISD Reporting Services FOREST MEETINGS COVERED BY ENB Forty-second session of the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC-42) 7-12 May 2007, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea Seventh Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF7) 16-27 April 2007, United Nations (UN) Headquarters, New York, United States of America Eighteenth session of Committee on Forestry (COFO18) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 12-16 March 2007, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Headquarters, Rome, Italy

23. Tiempo Issue 8 Desertification The Scourge Of Africa desertification is the term that has recently been given to this process. Its main causes are drought, desiccation and human activities. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/tiempo/issue08/desert.htm

Desertification: the scourge of Africa Michael Bernard Kwesi Darkoh discusses the complex factors underlying the threat to Africa's drylands. WITHIN THE LAST DECADE or so, 25 countries in Africa have faced drastic food shortages as a result of the extended drought. The reduced capacity for food production has brought a population of over 200 million people to the verge of calamity. Some have died of starvation, and among the survivors, especially the children and young people, many will suffer impaired health for the rest of their lives. The international community brought in emergency aid, both in the form of food supplies and of technical assistance in rehabilitating drought victims. However, the drought hazard in Africa can be expected to continue, recurring at unpredictable intervals. It cannot be overcome by one-time massive injections of emergency aid. A long-range strategy must be developed which is capable of being realized under the given constraints of these impoverished regions through sustainable development of their fragile environment. The droughts and famines that have swept over Africa in the past and which are likely to strike again are not sudden natural disasters. Nor are they simply caused by lack of rainfall. They are the end-results of a long deterioration in the ability of Africa to feed itself, a decline caused largely by mistakes and mismanagement - both inside and outside the continent.

24. Desertification.net - Political Will To Stop Spreading Deserts Is Missing ROME, Italy, June 15, 2001 (ENS) More than 100 countries in all climatic regions on all continents are seriously affected by desertification, the United http://www.desertification.net/

EcoHumane Health People Phenomena ... World Vital Statistics Counters Political Will to Stop Spreading Deserts is Missing ROME, Italy, June 15, 2001 (ENS) - More than 100 countries in all climatic regions on all continents are seriously affected by desertification, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today in a statement marking the UN's World Day to Combat Desertification on Sunday. In protests over water shortages, two people were shot and killed by police in Karachi, Pakistan this week, and hundreds of activists have been detained in recent months. Much of Pakistan has been afflicted by a severe drought which has left major reservoirs almost empty, and efforts to solve the problem have become tangled in inter-provincial disputes. At the FAO, Assistant Director-General Dr. Hosny El-Lakany, said desertification is like a "disease of the earth." It dries up the vegetative cover of croplands, pastures and woodlands, and has negative impact on biological diversity, soil fertility, the hydrological cycle, crop yields and livestock production. In Central Asia on June 12, the government of Uzbekistan took emergency measures to alleviate the consequences of the drought in the northwestern provinces that has reduced crop fields to half of their original size, and put around 100,000 people out of work. Drinking water is in short supply and the environment is parched.

25. Desertification So we have positive feedback and a selfaggravating process, culminating in desertification, a process of land degradation that destroys its productivity. http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap10/desertification.html

Desertification E. Linacre and B. Geerts Charney's hypothesis There is a controversy about the advance of deserts in the world (1). There is a widespread belief that the Sahara desert is advancing into the Sahel region, for instance. The Sahel is a narrow band of West Africa between 15 -18 N, between the Sahara to the north and savannah (grass and open forest) and equatorial forest to the south. It extends from Senegal at the coast at about 15 W, across Mali and Niger, to about 15 E. It receives rainfall during a short but active wet season, from late June to mid September. It is covered by grassland and supports a pasture-based society which traditionally moved meridionally following the rains. Its northern limit may be defined by the 200 mm/a isohyet. Is the Sahara extending into the Sahel? And if so, is this because of fluctuations of rainfall (total amount, rainfall intensity, duration of wet season, ) or is it largely the result of human activities, such as overgrazing or the removal of trees for firewood? There are also the questions: Do deserts create droughts? Do droughts create deserts? In other words, is there a positive climate feedback, which accelerates land degradation? A now classic paper by Jules Charney The problem of overgrazing in the Sahel is as acute now as it was in the 1960's, yet there is no clear rainfall trend in the Sahel. The period 1930-'60 was slightly wetter than 1960-'90 in most parts of the Sahel. More significant than any trend is the occurrence of dry and wet periods, each lasting several years. The Sahel enjoyed a notably wet decade in the 1950’s, which was followed by a drought in the 70’s and 80’s (1). However, land productivity was fully recovered around 1990. So Charney's hypothesis cannot be confirmed.

26. -- Press Releases September 2006 - Combatants Of Global Desertification Win Key The cowinners, who will receive their awards next month, are being honored for their achievements in combating desertification and land degradation—a major http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=487&ArticleID=

27. Land Degradation And Desertification | NRCS Soils International Union of Soil Sciences working group site offers conference reports, technical papers and links to other organizations. http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/landdeg/

Soils Home About Us Soil Survey Soil Use ... Contact Us Search Soils All NRCS Sites for Soil Use Hydric Soils Soil Quality State of the Land ... Centers and Institutes Land Degradation and Desertification Last Modified: The Working Group on Land Degradation and Desertification of the International Union of Soil Sciences AGENDA 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development emphasizes the need and proposes a wide range of activities to address land degradation in general and desertification in particular. As a response to this challenge, more than 100 countries have signed the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) in 1997. A key point of the CCD deals with scientific and technical cooperation on investigation, collection, evaluation of the processes and factors involved in land degradation leading to desertification. At the conclusion of the Conference on Land Degradation at Adana, an International Task Force on Land Degradation, to be formed under the auspices of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), was proposed and unanimously adopted. Plato: Attica (Athens) was no longer cultivated by true herdsmen, who made husbandry their business, and were lovers of honor, and of a noble nature. As a result Attica had become deforested, the soils depleted, and there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body –all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away.

28. About Desertification Or are the warnings about desertification being overstated? Are we being diverted by alarmists without a real sense of global evolution? http://the-human-race.com/pages/about_desertification.htm

Desertification: Serious Threat or Global Myth? Are the world's arable lands being relentlessly consumed and degraded? Is this threat real and is it being adequately addressed in our agenda for the environment? Or are the warnings about desertification being overstated? Are we being diverted by alarmists without a real sense of global evolution? The United Nations Environment Program brings some perspective to this debate. It estimates that: some 30 percent of the earth's land area suffers slight, moderate, or severe desertification, with an additional six percent classified as "extremely, severely desertified" land which cannot be recovered. UNEP, Nairobi 1984 Further, this organization claims that over 900 million people are at risk from desertification. Recently, the media and politicians alike have demonstrated an increased awareness about environmental degradation. The 1992 Earth Summit brought environmental concerns collectively to the world stage for the first time. And at this forum, desertification was again recognized as a global threat. Prominent works on the environment have also pointed to land degradation and desertification as a growing global problem. This phenomena is treated on a similar footing with the grave dangers posed by environmental threats such as:

29. Desertification Short introduction into desertification in Africa. http://www.geog.umd.edu/research/projects/Desertification.htm

Undergraduate Graduate Program Brochures BSOS Student Pages ... People Desertification Principal Investigator: Stephen D. Prince Non-degraded grazing land, at near potential productivity (NPP set by the climate and soil.) Dryland degradation or desertification is widely believed to be a major global environmental threat, to which the international community has responded with the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNCOD) and a Convention to Combat Desertification. Yet no objective definition or operational measurement techniques have been agreed for global application. Existing field and regional reports are subjective, qualitative and inconsistent, inhibiting regional and global assessment. In this project this problem is addressed at local to regional and global scales Earlier work on this topic was undertaken in the Sahel (the southern fringe of the Sahara stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea). The region was the cradle of the desertification debate and it suffered several devastating droughts and famines between the late 1960s and early 1990s. Desertified (degraded) grazing land in northern South Africa. Note sparse vegetation and soil erosion

30. Desertification This scenario is likely to happen if desertification continues. desertification is land degradation that seriously destroys the world s valuable store of http://education.nmsu.edu/webquest/wq/deserti/Desertification.html

A Desertification WebQuest Who has seen my cows? Who has seen my goats? These leafless trees And this dry land Must be why they left. Youssou N'Dour Introduction Task Resources Topics ... Conclusion Introduction Imagine yourself living in a world where soil is dry, water is scarce, agriculture is difficult, and therefore food is limited. This scenario is likely to happen if desertification continues. Desertification is land degradation that seriously destroys the world's valuable store of productive areas. Find out in detail what desertification is and how we can prevent its negative results on our planet. Back to top The Task Working in small groups of three to five students, you will focus on the causes and the consequences of desertification, as well as the solutions. You will use the WWW to conduct your research. Additionally, you will investigate books, videos, and additional resources about desertification based on research topics explained in "The Research Topics" section. Each group will research one aspect of desertification. Then you will make a presentation at the end of your investigation based on what you have learned about the specific aspect of desertification. Try to be as creative as possible when planning your presentation. Back to top Additional Resources Acorn Naturalists California Deserts ARIDLANDS Newsletter Deserts Desert Environment ... Making Deserts Bloom?

31. CARRE At SDSU - Aral Sea Desertification Study A tremendous amount of desertification can be seen between the years of 1973 and 1989. These Landsat MSS processed subscenes of the southern Aral Sea area http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/facilities/carre/carre_study.html

C A R R E Central Asia Research and Remediation Exchange at San Diego State University The Aral Sea Area Desertification Change-Detection Study The following images show the drastic environmental changes that have occurred during the last few decades. As water from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers has been diverted (primarily for irrigation of cultivated fields), the Aral Sea has been drying up, leaving large areas of evaporated pesticide-laden dust to blow over the local inhabitants. These images focus on the southern coast of the Aral Sea, as the shoreline recedes and former fishing ports are stranded far from the sea. A tremendous amount of desertification can be seen between the years of 1973 and 1989. These Landsat MSS processed subscenes of the southern Aral Sea area show the retreat of shoreline from the Muynak area, once a prosperous commercial fishing center. The Aral Sea is fed from the south by the Amu Dar'ya river, and from the east by the Syr Dar'ya river. For further information or for providing suggestions on what can be done to help the people of Central Asia, please contact: Prof. Eric G. Frost

32. Index Information about international project, funded by the European Union, to investigate the effects of desertification on land use in Mediterranean Europe. http://www.medalus.demon.co.uk/

Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use An eight year international, interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Commission on environmental change in Mediterranean Europe. Outline of project Detailed work plans for MEDALUS III For all other information about the project, please contact the project office medalus@medalus.demon.co.uk Last modified April 2001 Indexes of institutions, participants and links from key words Document and data archive ... and related web sites

33. Contents 1. The context of studies into the perception of desertification 3. Perception of desertification on the southern great plains a preliminary enquiry http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80190e/80190E00.htm

Perception of desertification Table of contents (136 p.) Edited by R. L. Heathcote The United Nations University ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research for the reports contained in this monograph was financed from the United Nations University (Japan) Projects 77/16 to 19 and 79/242, and the Flinders University of South Australia. Additional support for the report in chapter 3 came from the University of Nebraska while the author was Visiting Professor in Geography in 1978. To these institutions and the many people in the field and in offices and libraries where research was conducted the authors express a deep sense of gratitude for their interest and help. CONTRIBUTORS Mr. M. Butler is Lecturer in Geography at the Adelaide College of the Arts and Education, Adelaide, South Australia 5001. Dr. R. L. Heathcote is Reader in Geography at the Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park, South Australia 5042. Mr. M. U. A. Tennakoon is senior Research Officer in the Central Bank of Ceylon, Colombo, Sri Lanka. At the time of writing, both Mr. Butler and Mr. Tennakoon were completing research towards a Ph.D. in Geography at Flinders University under Dr. Heathcote's supervision.

34. GRASSROOTS INDICATORS FOR DESERTIFICATION Experience And Perspectives From Easte This is the central focus of Grassroots Indicators for desertification. The book documents why grassroots indicators should play a key role in the http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-9320-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

français Español idrc.ca HOME Publications ... All our books GRASSROOTS INDICATORS FOR DESERTIFICATION Topic Explorer IDRC Books New Development/evaluation ... All our books People Bill Carman ID: Added: Modified: Refreshed: GRASSROOTS INDICATORS FOR DESERTIFICATION Experience and Perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa Book(s) 174 of 209 GRASSROOTS INDICATORS FOR DESERTIFICATION Experience and Perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa Edited by Helen Hambly and Tobias Onweng Angura IDRC ISBN Out of print e-ISBN 1-55250-286-4 180 pp. "Knowledge is power" has become a common but true cliché in development research. And, as two sides of the same coin, "knowledge sharing" and "power sharing" lie at the root of many development problems, including drought and desertification. But what of grassroots knowledge? Measures or signals of environmental quality or change recorded by individuals, households, and communities are derived from local systems of observation, practice, and indigenous knowledge. They are grassroots indicators and, used effectively, may lead to the creation of new and more accurate development indicators, as well as improved processes for both planning and monitoring. This is the central focus of Grassroots Indicators for Desertification . The book documents why grassroots indicators should play a key role in the monitoring, evaluation, and reporting systems for sustainable development and, more specifically, in efforts to reverse desertification and other forms of land degradation. It also shows how their use would encourage local control of the generation and use of knowledge.

35. What Is Desertification desertification is the degradation of drylands. It involves the loss of biological or economic productivity and complexity in croplands, pastures, http://www.gdrc.org/uem/Trialogue/whatis-desert.html

What is ... Desertification Desertification is the degradation of drylands. It involves the loss of biological or economic productivity and complexity in croplands, pastures, and woodlands. It is due mainly to climate variability and unsustainable human activities. The most commonly cited forms of unsustainable land use are overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and poor irrigation practices. Seventy percent of the world's drylands (excluding hyper-arid deserts), or some 3,600 million hectares, are degraded. While drought is often associated with land degradation, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs when rainfall is significantly below normal recorded levels for a long time. Drylands respond quickly to climatic fluctuations. By definition, drylands have limited freshwater supplies. Precipitation can vary greatly during the year. In addition to this seasonal variability, wide fluctuations occur over years and decades, frequently leading to drought. Over the ages, dryland ecology has become attuned to this variability in moisture; plants and animals can respond to it rapidly. For example, satellite imagery has shown that the vegetation boundary south of the Sahara can move by up to 200 km when a wet year is followed by a dry one, and vice versa. People must also adjust to these natural fluctuations.

36. Sahara's Abrupt Desertification Started By Changes In Earth's Orbit, Accelerated German scientists, employing a new climate system model, have concluded that desertification of the Saharan and Arabia regions was initiated by subtle http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990712080500.htm

Science News Share Blog Cite Print Email Bookmark ScienceDaily (Jul. 12, 1999) See also: Climate Global Warming Earth Science Weather ... Temperature record The researchers, headed by Martin Claussen of the Potsdam-Institut fuer Klimafolgenforschung (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) employed a model of intermediate complexity to analyze climate feedbacks during the past several thousand years of the current, or Holocene, era. Called CLIMBER-2 (for CLIMate and BiosphERe, version 2.1), the model led to the conclusion that the desertification of North Africa began abruptly 5,440 years ago (+/- 30 years). Before that time, the Sahara was covered by annual grasses and low shrubs, as evidenced by fossilized pollen. The transition to today's arid climate was not gradual, but occurred in two specific episodes. The first, which was less severe, occurred between 6,700 and 5,500 years ago. The second, which was brutal, lasted from 4,000 to 3,600 years ago. Summer temperatures increased sharply, and precipitation decreased, according to carbon-14 dating. This event devastated ancient civilizations and their socio-economic systems. The change from the mid-Holocene climate to that of today was initiated by changes in the Earth's orbit and the tilt of Earth's axis. Some 9,000 years ago, Earth's tilt was 24.14 degrees, as compared with the current 23.45 degrees, and perihelion, the point in the Earth's orbit that is closest to the Sun, occurred at the end of July, as compared with early January now. At that time, the Northern Hemisphere received more summer sunlight, which amplified the African and Indian summer monsoon.

37. August 5, 2003: China Losing War With Advancing Deserts An Asian Development Bank assessment of desertification in Gansu Province reports Arresting desertification may depend more on grass than trees—on both http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update26.htm

August 5, 2003-6 China Losing War With Advancing Deserts Lester R. Brown China is now at war. It is not invading armies that are claiming its territory, but expanding deserts. Old deserts are advancing and new ones are forming, like guerrilla forces striking unexpectedly, forcing Beijing to fight on several fronts. And worse, the growing deserts are gaining momentum, occupying an ever-larger piece of China's territory each year. Desert expansion has accelerated with each successive decade since 1950. China's Environmental Protection Agency reports that the Gobi Desert expanded by 52,400 square kilometers (20,240 square miles) from 1994 to 1999, an area half the size of Pennsylvania. With the advancing Gobi now within 150 miles of Beijing, China's leaders are beginning to sense the gravity of the situation. Overplowing and overgrazing are converging to create a dust bowl of historic dimensions. With little vegetation remaining in parts of northern and western China, the strong winds of late winter and early spring can remove literally millions of tons of topsoil in a single day soil that can take centuries to replace.

38. Desertification: Heading For Catastrophe? desertification is a growing threat worldwide. Two prerequisites for successful interventions ensure the local community is fully involved, http://www.icarda.org/HomePageStory/Desertification.htm

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 T 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'. Desertification dates back to the beginning of agriculture 7000 years ago and was noted during the collapse of Mesopotamia and the Roman Empire. In the region of the 'hundred dead cities' near Aleppo, Syria, 3-6 feet of soil was washed away in the first century following the invasion of armies and disuse of conservation structures. More recent manifestations include the dust bowls of the American mid-west in the 1930s, the shrinking of the Aral Sea from the 1960s onwards, and debilitating dust storms in China in the 1990s that continue today (costing the country US$ 2-3 billion every year). All these occurred during attempts to increase agricultural productivity!

39. Facts And Figures: Desertification And Drought: International Year Of Freshwater The World Day to Combat desertification and Drought, celebrated every year the 17th of June, marks the anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations http://www.wateryear2003.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5137&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=2

Newsletter Logo Media Corner FAQ's ... About How to get involved? - first steps - in your everyday life - in your community - at school ... - in the garden Education Corner - by theme Water library - by theme - by region Photo library - by theme ... - by region Facts and Figures - by theme Events calendar - scientific, technical - public awareness Water talks - proverbs - postcards - water, eau, voda ... - myths and stories Facts and Figures: Desertification and Drought The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, celebrated every year the 17th of June, marks the anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification ( UNCCD ), in 1992, based on a recommendation of the Rio Earth Summit. What is desertification? The UNCCD defines desertification as the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. Desertification occurs in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas - where the soils are especially fragile, vegetation is sparse and the climate particularly unforgiving. These areas are inhabited by one fifth of the world’s population. World map of aridity zones Source: CRU/UEA, UNEP/DEWA. Published

40. Desertification It would be a mistake to view the various ecological trends such as desertification as isolated, localized threats. Local threats they certainly are. http://www.worldbank.org/html/cgiar/newsletter/Sept97/10unep.html

Desertification by Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme It would be a mistake to view the various ecological trends such as desertification as isolated, localized threats. Local threats they certainly are. But, they also form a mosaic whose patterns help define many of the key global concerns of our age - issues which, directly or indirectly, touch upon the lives of everyone. Desertification is a complex phenomenon whose effects are manifested socially. The hardships suffered by the millions who stay behind in a land gradually losing all its productivity and the millions of those who decide to leave their impoverished surroundings to an even more miserable existence in an urban setting - are the social manifestations of this malaise. These marginalized citizens - often women - have little support and few to care for them. Economically invisible, they do not appear on the spread-sheets of economists; they may have very little access to community services, to national programs, even to the processes of democracy. They may have no security of tenure on their land or even for the trees they plant. Programs in the past to control desertification have had limited success. Those which succeeded did so only in some areas and only for limited periods. Even small projects which were successful have seldom been replicable over large areas. The reasons for our failure are apparent: a palpable lack of political will, inadequate resources, emphasis on abstract planning rather than on field action, and neglect of the social dimensions of the problem.

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Page 2     21-40 of 84    Back | 1  | 2  | 3  | 4  | 5  | Next 20