Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
because they felt that their main concerns (drought,
poverty and food security) were being sacrificed at
the altar of the two main concerns of developed
nations (biodiversity and climate change). Post-Rio
negotiations in 1993 and 1994 led to the
International Convention to Combat
Desertification (CCD), which came into force
when the fiftieth country to ratify it, Chad, signed
in December 1996. The first conference of the
parties was held in 1997. Particular emphasis in this
convention has been placed on national action
programmes and urgent action for Africa, the
continent most affected by drought and
desertification.
Desertification as a global issue has been
officially recognised by the UN for over two
decades. What then, in this time, has been achieved
in terms of recognising its scope, investigating its
causes and effects and implementing remedial
solutions?
•
broader natural resource degradation issues
(vegetation destruction (e.g. Plate 13.1), loss
of biodiversity, localised changes in
microclimate, mesoscale land-climate
feedback mechanisms, and impacts on surface
and groundwater quality and availability); and
•
impacts of economies and societies (increased
vulnerability to drought from the household
to national levels; population displacement;
DESERTIFICATION—CAUSES AND
EFFECTS
Desertification processes
There is now general agreement that the scope of
desertification is broad, as can be seen from the
Article 1 of the CCD, which defines it as:
Land degradation in arid, semi-arid,
and dry sub-humid areas resulting from
various factors, including climatic
variations and human activities.
Desertification includes environmental impacts
such as soil erosion, reduced soil fertility, loss of
vegetation cover and loss of species, and human
impacts such as increased vulnerability of people
to drought, reduced levels of national food
security and, in the worst cases, malnutrition and
starvation. It is possible to divide these processes
into three broad areas:
Plate 13.1
The first stages in a complex fuelwood
supply chain in Pakistan. When I interviewed this wood
collector in 1991 in the Baluchistan Desert he had
arrived at a wood market on the main road near Turbat,
over 500 km from Karachi. He had five similarly laden
camels. The journey from his home to one of the few
wooded areas in the desert, the time it had taken him
to cut the trees, and his journey to market had taken
three days. He received approximately US$10 for the
five camel loads of wood from the market's owner. The
price of this wood would have increased three to four
times due to labour and transport costs before it was
sold to Karachi.
•
specific soil degradation processes (water and
wind erosion, salinisation, waterlogging,
topsoil induration, and reduced soil fertility);
