DESERTS AND BAND DEGRADATION

DESERTS AND BAND DEGRADATION

1.One of the major environmental problems facing the world right now is desertification-more and more of the world's land is being turned into the deserts. These new deserts are not hot and sandy like the Thar Desert in Rajasthan but are basically areas where the soil has become useless for growing crops.

2.Some estimates suggest that over thirty five percent of the Earth's land surface risks becoming a desert. Every year, about six million hectares of agricultural land becomes a desert. Even the largest desert, the Sahara, is supposed to be advancing southwards at the rate of thirty kilometers per year.

3.Deserts are advancing and taking over the land at a very rapid rate in some parts of the world. In Mali, the desert has taken over about two hundred and twenty miles in as a few as twenty years. This can be stopped by developing tree-planting projects, having better agriculture and managing the land better.

4.By the year 2000, about three million sq kilometers of extra desert was created. This land had been providing twenty percent of the world's food supplies-enough for over eight hundred and fifty million people.

5.Global warming will increase the amount of land which could be classified as useless for agriculture. By 2008, in Africa alone, the amount of this type of land could increase by 90 million hectares, an area four times the size of Britain!

6.Some of the major reasons for degradation of the soil are over-cultivation using chemical  fertilizers, over-grazing of pastures and cutting down of trees.

7.The mining of metals causes a lot of sedimentation and other chemicals to go into the ground and also into the water system. For instance, mercury and cyanide used to separate gold and copper from rock make their way into the air and water. These chemicals are very poisonous and could cause a lot of damage.

8.Lead and zinc mines used by the Romans in Wales, two thousand years ago, are still a source of pollution for the groundwater in the area.

9.In the USA, forty one percent of all insecticides are used on corn. Of these eighty percent are used to treat a pest that could be controlled simply by rotating the corn for one year with any other crop.

10.In 2003, a staggering thirty six percent of the total food grain production in the world was used for animal feed! In the USA, about sixty five percent of the grain production (mostly corn) is fed to livestock.

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