Like climate change, barren lands are now a global problem. Emergency measures of replenishing groundwater, stopping anthropogenic activities and refreshing the green cover can be immediate solutions
While travelling across central India, especially through the Western Ghats, one will not fail to observe the clear-cut changes made to the topography of the region. The lush, green forests and the tree canopy have all steadily declined in the last few years. Vegetation has given way to more dusty, dry-looking land that seems to exist throughout the year. The meandering forest streams that once used to punctuate the verdant forests have all dried up along with the forest cover. As the Indian hinterland shows some changes that are in tune with worsening climate change, the world itself is realising that a much larger problem — thanks to rapid climate change — is knocking on the door, which is the issue of rapid desertification.
As greening and afforestation measures have proved to be an uphill task, desertification is fast making an already difficult battle even tougher. This aspect was very much evident during the recent 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation (CRIC17) of the United Nation’s Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Guyana. The gathering understood the need for emergency steps to stop desertification that now grips almost all countries around the world.
The preliminary assessment report circulated by the Secretariat of the UNCCD found that in the first 15 years of the millennium, 20 per cent of the world’s productive and healthy land was degraded. This seemingly low-level threat has now cornered 169 countries in its grip, leading to rapid land degradation and impacting nearly 3.2 billion people economically. The assessment was made on the basis of data submitted by 135 countries. In October, 2015, after the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 12th Conference of parties to UNCCD endorsed the SDG target 15.3. Under this target lies a new concept called land degradation neutrality, according to which, countries are attempting to halt land degradation through desertification.
One of the crucial aspects to containing desertification is to understand the speed and area of concentration of the deserted land and the factors that trigger the same. Moreover, besides adversely impacting the people economically, degraded lands and soils pose a severe threat to the provision of ecosystem services and economic development globally. Given the gravity of the problem, in the last four years alone, 82 countries, including India, have committed to stop land degradation by 2030. But without an adequate plan for land governance, education, demography and land use planning, this ambitious target seems difficult to be achieved.
In order to attain meaningful progress in controlling desertification, instead of treating the symptoms of land degradation, India must focus on the causes. The immediate cause that typically triggers desertification is the loss of primary vegetation. Most lands fall prey to mining and other unnatural activities which result in the removal of vegetation due to human activities.
Sustained lack of green cover causes a dry land to develop an arid nature and eventually results in what can be termed as the “death of the topsoil.” This renders re-growth of any greenery almost impossible and leaves the land degraded.
Then there are also other factors that drive the disappearance of the green cover such as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation for fuel or construction materials. Vegetation plays a major role in determining the biological composition of the soil.
Studies have shown that in many environments, the rate of erosion and run-off decreases exponentially with increased vegetation cover. Unprotected, dry soil surfaces blow away with the wind or are washed off by flash floods, thereby leaving infertile lower soil layers that bake in the sun and become unproductive hardpan, which is an apt environment for desertification.
In fact, according to many scientists, one of the most common causes for desertification is overgrazing or excessive consumption of vegetation by the cattle. The scientific community also concurs with this contention. Interestingly, facts show that there is a natural cause for the existence of desert in the place, which is now the Sahara desert. A natural climate cycle that caused a lack of water in this area from time to time, coupled with overgrazing by the local population, slowly converted the Sahara savanna to the Sahara desert. Precipitation factors were aided by climate change that also caused the acceleration and led to the formation of deserts.
India must recognise the patterns and perceive the threats that dry lands in various parts of the country face. Due to the lack of natural water sources, or drying up of the same, coupled with the problem of overgrazing, Indian lands are faced with the danger of becoming degraded and may eventually be deserted.
The first step to prevent the same will be to ensure that satellite data is employed to create a detailed database that categorises the lands and identifies those that are on the edge of becoming deserts. Emergency measures of replenishing the groundwater table, stopping anthropogenic activities and refreshing the green cover can be immediate solutions. Land is precious and in short supply thanks to population explosion. To lose the little land to deserts would be a true misfortune for India.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)
