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December 1999
On one of those rare couch-potato evenings, I was switching channels at random on the TV when I chanced upon a film. It was riveting.
She had combed the woods picking fragrant flowers, which would be strung into garlands for sale. It was a part of her daily routine, as it was for so many other young girls in the village. Her basket was only half full, which wasn’t good enough, but she was tired. So she sat to rest under a tree and gazed longingly at the blossoms above. They began to fall, almost as if she had willed them to. One by one, and then, in a steady shower. If she had half a dozen baskets, she could have easily filled them. Overwhelmed, she hugged the tree in gratitude, and it spoke to her. “I can give you these everyday, but you must make some promises. Tell no other soul about me. And never, never pluck a flower, or break a branch. I will drop more flowers than you can take. If you break your promise…” She didn’t let the tree finish. “Thank you for your kindness. I promise,” she gushed, and skipped away. Over the ensuing months, she was the only girl in the entire village who had a pile of aromatic blooms, day after day. She now had a steady income and could even manage to save some money. Soon she would wed.
She married. But didn’t tell her husband the secret for a long time. He questioned her regular early morning forays into the forest. “I can’t tell you. I promised not to tell anyone,” she explained. But he persisted and, finally, weaned the secret out of her.
To be cont..… (Earthsense January 2000,Environmental Collage)
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In February 2000, experts from around the world will converge on Dubai to deliberate on a most serious ecological problem facing, in particular, the Middle East and northern Africa – desertification. Deserts themselves are getting desertified and productive lands are becoming deserts.
Famine and drought in Ethiopia have claimed millions of lives over the last 20 years. There is a chronic food shortage and, since the 1984-85 famine, the country has needed as much as a million tonnes of food aid each year.
In neighbouring Somalia crops failed this year, following six consecutive poor harvests since 1996. There are reports of large-scale population migration, starvation-related deaths and inter-clan strife.
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One of the world’s wettest spots, Mawsynram (a tiny mountainous hamlet in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya) faces one of the worst drinking water crises in recent times; and inhabitants of Cherrapunji (a village, some 16 km east of Mawsynram), that also holds a number of highest rainfall records, are compelled to buy drinking water, something unheard of in previous years.
Groundwater resources on the Arabian Peninsula are in a critical condition as the volumes withdrawn far exceed natural recharge rates. There is an increasing problem of creating deserts as salt-water fills the depleted freshwater aquifers.
These are highly disturbing, even alarming, trends. They may be occurring in diverse regions of the world, but they share one thing in common. They are all afflicted by desertification. This is a process whereby land degrades, its productive potential falls, and it deteriorates or reverts, literally, to desert-like condition. Soil erodes, and its fertility declines to the extent that it is no longer economically viable to farm or graze the land.
Today, desertification is a serious problem. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (see box) concerns itself specifically with arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions. In reality, however, desertification can happen anywhere and affect any type of ecosystem – terrestrial or aquatic, natural or man-made, mountain or plain, cropland, grassland, forest or desert, dry or humid….
Climatic changes may trigger the process, but human activities are the proximate cause. Overgrazing on fragile arid and semi-arid rangelands strips them of grasses. Deforestation (without compensatory reforestation) destroys trees that hold the soil to the land. Poor irrigation techniques leave behind salt crusts in layers. Farming on land with unsuitable terrain or soil wears it away; and over cultivation eventually exhausts it.
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The consequences: aggravating drought and famine, declining living standards, and swelling numbers of environmental refugees whose land is too eroded to yield crops or feed livestock. The final outcome: tension and conflict within and between nations. These have come to be distressing realities.
Let’s consider some cases of desertification cited earlier. In the early 1970s Ethiopia’s highlands, its traditional farming area, were losing as much as a billion tonnes of topsoil a year. Agricultural production dropped; there were food shortages in the cities; and throngs of impoverished peasants streamed into the country’s lowlands, including an area that straddles the border with Somalia and is of long-standing dispute between the two countries. There was an outbreak of hostilities. The 1977-78 war between Ethiopia and Somalia alone created a refugee population of 350,000. The drought and famine situation in both countries has persisted, and hordes of environmental refugees squat in squalid camps on the border between the two nations. Among them survives a generation which has no notion of normal family life and that has lost touch with the traditional norms and means of survival.
In northeastern India, the wanton destruction of forest cover has been responsible for the annual drought in some of the rainiest places in the world. Torrential rains lash the area but with no vegetation to break its fall the downpour washes away soil. With hardly any soil left to soak up rainwater, most of it gets rapidly discharged without percolating into aquifers. The area is soaking wet from June to early September, and bone dry from Mid-September to February when natural springs and streams are parched and there is no underground storage to draw from.
Almost 90% of the Arabian Peninsula is desert or has been desertified. Since the middle of this century, modern agricultural systems have replaced traditional grazing and subsistence farming. As population has increased, marginal land and some rangelands (both unsuitable for cultivation) have been put under agriculture to cope with the increasing demand for food. Huge amounts of groundwater continue to be pumped out to irrigate crops (abstraction rates are reported to be three times that of natural recharge) and, in the coastal areas, salt water has migrated into freshwater aquifers. This is a clear indication of desertification.
Earthsense talked to Dr. L.A. Desougi, senior environmental researcher, Federal Environmental Agency, Abu Dhabi about the issue of desertification in general, and how the UAE is fighting the problem. Here are excerpts.
Desertification: who is to blame?
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When land desertifies, it loses its productivity. Who is responsible? That, according to Dr. Desougi, is the most critical issue. Is it the farmer who is cultivating a piece of land? The consumer who is buying his produce? The scientist who is advising the farmer on cropping systems and inputs? Government policy that encourages farmers to adopt certain practices? Or other outside influences and compulsions that are making the farmer do what he does and, consequently, exhaust his land? Or do each of them play a role?
Land is the most difficult to manage because it involves the interplay of so many characters – even those like us who have no direct contact with it. You can make a polluter pay and throw a thief in jail. But is it possible to punish someone for stealing the land’s fertility? First you have to identify who is responsible.
Draining the countryside
Look at how megacities – urban areas – are consuming the fertility of the land. This coffee (that we are drinking) is a cash crop that may have robbed soil nutrients over acres of land. The same applies to cotton, which has gone into making those clothes stuffed in our cupboards. Take tobacco. Not only does it pose a health hazard, but it is also grown on some of the most fertile lands. The fact is, we may be city dwellers but we still contribute to desertification by the enormous demands we make on the land. Our bread, meat, fruit etc are, after all, not grown in the city!
We humans are taking too much from the earth. Far more than we need. This is placing an unbearable stress on the soil; forcing it, with the aid of chemical inputs and mechanisation, to produce more than its capacity. When even this fails to satisfy our wants, cultivation spills on to fragile, marginal lands that are dry and unfit for agriculture. Many times expansion onto poor soils may be brought about by prime lands being allocated for other development, say tourism, real estate or industry which, in turn, place even more pressure on the land.
Understanding the land
To reverse the desertification trend, understanding the land in its totality is vital. This incorporates gauging its limitations before determining the appropriate land use, and taking cognisance of all likely impacts (environmental, socio-cultural and economic) as part of developmental planning. We must keep in mind that not all lands are suitable for cultivation. And then, again, those that are may not be suited to all types of crops. Nature places constraints and each parcel of land has its own carrying capacity.
Adopting a holistic approach is essential, as is the integration of environmental considerations into policy issues.
We have the power to make the land fertile or deprive it of its fertility. An attitudinal change towards the land by all segments of society is required. This may come about with awareness. But sometimes such efforts are insufficient and should be backed by legislation, rules, and regulations. Even these will fail if not implemented. So there must be an enforcement mechanism.
How the UAE is tackling desertification
The UAE has placed a lot of emphasis on combating desertification. Greening of the Emirates was initiated well before the Convention to Combat Desertification – CCD - (see box) came into effect, and still continues with unabated vigour. The financial resources allocated for forestry works are comparable to those for agriculture, industry, health and education. Not only is afforestation (with indigenous species such as wild jujube, thorny acacia, salvadora, gaf, etc) being undertaken directly by the municipalities but projects are also being executed by specialised companies on a contract basis. In many forested tracts, wildlife such as deer and partridge has been introduced, while bird populations on the whole have increased. Along roads there are ‘shelterbelt’ plantations that serve as wind breaks and fix sand dunes.
The Federal Environmental Agency (FEA) is finalising a National Environment Strategy that covers ten sectors including water, land and agriculture. Ecological problems associated with each sector will be dealt with. Also being constituted by the FEA is a special desertification committee with representatives from various concerned ministries and municipalities. Besides these measures, due importance is being given to research on all aspects of the environment, including the issue of desertification. Recently Zayed International Prize for the Environment has established a specialised centre for environmental research. There is also an international conference, Desertification 2000, being organised by the Zayed Prize next year.
The CCD calls for drought prediction measures. But here this is not an issue because petrol wells are protecting people from the impacts of drought and famine!
CONVENTION TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), first proposed during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, was adopted in Paris in June 1994 and entered into force on 26 December 1996. Its Secretariat is based in Bonn, Germany.
The CCD seeks to address desertification (land degradation) and mitigate the effects of drought on arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid lands through effective action at local, national, and regional levels. Sustainable human development is its main theme, with focus on poverty eradication, regeneration of the environment and promotion of sustainable livelihoods. Over 150 countries have ratified the Convention, including the UAE, which did so in January this year.
Desertification is a major threat on all continents, severely or moderately affecting 110 countries and some 70% of the world’s agricultural dry lands. Nowhere is the problem more serious than in Africa. It is this urgency that led the CCD to adopt a resolution on ‘Urgent Action for Africa’ even before the Convention came into force. And it is the same urgency that made the third Conference of Parties to the CCD (Recife, Brazil, 15-26 November 1999) focus on the strategies adopted by African countries to overcome this critical environmental threat.
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WHAT ON EARTH CAN WE DO?
Dr Eisa M. Abdellatif from Dubai says we can help fight desertification by:
· Planting trees and protecting existing plant cover
· Not being wasteful in our use of water: turning taps off instead of keeping them running while shaving, brushing, soaping etc.; using water saving fixtures on taps and shower heads; installing showers that we can adjust to low flow when not in use e.g. while soaping (although, ideally, we should turn it off completely); making sure that our car(s) and sidewalk(s) are not hosed down for cleaning; fixing pipe leaks promptly; making sure the taps don’t drip constantly….
· Minimising the use of, and recycling plastics which hurt the soil and plants when they are simply dumped
· Regulating and managing the pumping of groundwater according to a scientific plan.
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