Imagine if you will … For three generations, your family has worked the dry land of the Sahel, barely making enough to feed yourselves. Your family cleared the forest for more land, planting sorghum and other crops for sale in the nearby market. But in the past few years, there has been no rain. Now, the plants die. The sand spreads. Death haunts your family. Three family members have died of AIDS and one child is dying of the disease. Your cow and two goats, which once gave you milk and meat, can find no grass to eat. Your mother and your other children are slowly starving. What will you do?

The Desertification of Africa

Africa has "taken too much from its land. It has overdrawn its environmental accounts," and the result for much of the continent has been "environmental bankruptcy." -- Lloyd Timberlake, author of Africa in Crisis

Desertification threatens 1/3 of the surface area of Africa. A 1997 United Nations report warns: tens of millions of people could be driven from their homes by spreading deserts. global warming is making desertification "the greatest environmental challenge of our times." About 30 million people are expected to move from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa on their way to Europe by The U.S. Senate has ratified an international agreement to combat soil erosion. 167 countries have now signed.

VULNERABILITY OF SOIL TO DESERTIFICATION

Deforestation in Ghana Select segment (3:44)

droughtmigration  population  arable land farming practicesdesertification  poverty overgrazingfamine deforestationdisease soil erosionconflict

Reclaiming the Desert in Niger (5:10 min) From a 9-year-old Kenyan child artist