Desertification, why most solution fail

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Desertification:
why most "solutions" fail

The word desertification was first used in 1949 by the French geographer Andre Aubreville to describe the change in North and
equatorial Africa from productive savanna forest, grasslands, and shrublands into unproductive desert. Compared to the 2000
slump in tech stocks or the September 11, 2001 attacks, desertification is not an issue for most North Americans.

Fleeing a dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, USA, 1936. Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Services Administration.
Massive erosion during North America's Dust Bowl years (1931-1938) has been blamed on inappropriate use of technology
(ploughing the prairies), overpopulation in the affected region, and lack of rainfall. Many people believe that the problems related
to the Dust Bowl have been solved--by resettlement of some of the remaining population, the establishment of National
Grasslands and the Soil Conservation Service, government spending and regulation, and the return in most years of "normal
rainfall."

Drought refugees, Oklahoma, USA, 1936. Dorothea Lange for the Farm Services Administration.
Yet the United Nations reports that Texas and New Mexico are some of the fastest, most severely desertifying areas of the world.
We have lots of names for this problem: droughts and floods, weeds, overgrazing, wildfire, endangered species, and the chronic
downtrodden state of the agricultural economy (in spite of massive subsidies, enormous technical improvements, and overseas
markets). These are problems for that tiny sector of the economy known as agriculture. We have separate government agencies
in charge of each of the symptoms.

However, these "rural problems" turn into urban problems. Where do our families come from? In North America we are usually
not more than three or four generations away from the land. In Nigeria, the abandonment of the countryside for the cities is much
more recent.

According to the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, "drought and desertification threaten the livelihood of over 1 billion people in more than 110
countries around the world." Reports the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, "70 percent of the world's drylands
(excluding hyper-arid deserts), or some 3,600 million hectares, are degraded."

In 1992, Rhodesian wildlife biologist Allan Savory came to a startling conclusion. Most experts on desertification blame
overpopulation, overstocking with livestock, overcutting of trees, poverty, warfare, inadequate technology or education, the tragedy
of the commons, or shifting cultivation. In West Texas, where Savory was working at the time, none of these causes were present.
Rural population was declining, livestock numbers were way down from earlier decades, mesquite trees were encroaching, and
there was peace. Money, technology, and education were abundant, all land was privately owned, and there was no shifting
cultivation. Yet West Texas was desertifying as rapidly as the worst areas of Africa or Asia.

Destitute nomads in Burkina Faso.
Savory concluded that the decision framework that most people use, and in which they are unconsciously trained, is well adapted
to treat symptoms, but to leave the causes unaddressed. Savory was forced to conclude that the lack of a holistic decision
framework was the fundamental cause of human-induced desertification, in both ancient and modern times. His book Holistic
Management: A New Framework for Decision Making (1998) is a simple and dedicated attempt to provide a usable alternative.

By 1992 the United Nations Environment Programme had spent US$6 billion treating the symptoms of desertification, with
another $450 billion called for. Though some people are skeptical of the U.N.'s figures for the rate at which productive land is
turning into unproductive desert, the reality worldwide is that land deterioration continues to have a serious impact on the quality
of people's lives. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to understand the causes of desertification and loss of
biodiversity and to support the numerous practitioners of cost-effective, successful approaches. It is our premise that the
common denominator of these approaches is that they consciously seek to manage wholes, rather than just parts.

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Ecosystem processes: the water cycle
by Peter Donovan
Much conventional thinking about the environment tends to separate "parts" of the same whole. In dealing with water problems,
for example, we tend to focus on symptoms -- such as flooding, erosion, and riparian conditions -- rather than causes, which are
almost always related to the function of the water cycle.

Allan Savory

With mostly bare soil in its catchment, this river now only runs during flash floods following heavy rainfall. Droughts and floods
are the norm.
Allan Savory

Same day, same soils, same rainfall: This nearby river's catchment has more covered soil. The river has water year-round.
Flooding is less severe and drought rare. Article
One of the basic processes of the ecosystem, the water cycle is often thought of only in climatic or large-scale terms.

Water constantly cycles around between bodies of water, the sky, and the earth. The cycle is powered by the sun. The most
important factor in the way the water cycle works is the soil, particularly the soil surface -- where the earth meets the air.

Particularly in seasonally arid or brittle environments -- which cover two-thirds of the earth's land area -- soil cover is essential to
the biodiversity (including biomass) and complexity that is needed for the soil to gain and store water, which is a basic necessity
for all life.

Soil cover, root mass, organic matter, and aeration -- these are synonyms for an effective water cycle, where water is absorbed
and retained as much as possible in the ground, and the surplus goes through plants (transpiration) and down into the water
table.

When most precipitation runs off, and what moisture is able to penetrate the soil is quickly sucked back out through the drying of
the bare soil surface, there is little moisture available to nourish plants or recharge the water table.

According to the Namibian government, 83 percent of precipitation that falls in Namibia evaporates directly from soil. The
remaining 17 percent is runoff, or is transpired through plants. The evaporation from Namibia is equivalent in volume to the flow
of the Columbia River at Portland, Oregon. In most of Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, the situation is similar.

This "river" of evaporation from soil, powered by solar energy plus capillary action or surface tension, is literally invisible. It is
mentally invisible as well. Unlike the Columbia River, we cannot dam it, pipe it to fields for irrigation, generate electricity from it,
transport barges full of grain on it, fish in it, windsurf on it, or litigate over the water rights.

Floods start as single drops running off the ground or released from the soil. Record rainfall is usually cited as a cause of
severe flooding in recent years. What if the land, the soil of a large watershed were to decrease, in its content of organic matter
and cover of plant material, by 1 or 2 percent? What would this mean to the severity and frequency of floods and droughts?

Instead of addressing the cause, we seem to prefer to treat the symptoms. In the Northwestern U.S.A. we spend millions trying
to keep roads open on slopes where annual grasses have largely replaced perennial grasses. Since the soil is less able to
absorb and hold water, landslides are now frequent.

Water cycling, like other ecosystem functions, cannot be effectively managed with mechanical technology. It must be managed
biologically.