Conserving Our Planet: Combating Desertification
According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification is interpreted as land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities.
Desertification, also called desert encroachment, is the extension or spread of desert to areas that were not desert before.
It is the change of an area covered by vegetation into one with scarcity or no vegetation.
Desertification, according to Puja Mondal in his article “Desertification: Causes, Effects, and Control of Desertification,” is a process where fertile lands become arid through land mismanagement or climate change. In other words, many deserts across the world came into being through the activities of humans.
Other causes of desertification include overgrazing, the absence of rain for a long time, deforestation, bush burning, urbanisation, tillage practises in agriculture, overuse of groundwater, adverse climatic conditions, such as soil erosion, and windstorms.
Desertification reduces the ability of land to support life and affects domestic animals, agricultural crops, wild species, and people. The reduction in plant cover that accompanies desertification leads to accelerated soil erosion by water and wind, leading equally to loss of lives, properties, and vegetation. It causes famine and hunger, as well as undermines wood and crop production.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) identified other potential impacts of desertification to include: higher threats of malnutrition from reduced food and water supplies; more water- and food-borne diseases resulting from poor hygiene and a lack of clean water; respiratory diseases caused by atmospheric dust from wind erosion and other air pollutants; and the spread of infectious diseases as populations migrate.
These susceptible dry lands cover 40% of the earth’s surface and put at risk more than 1 billion people who are dependent on these lands for survival. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) special report on climate change and land desertification found that most people affected by desertification are located in Southeast Asia, the circum-Saharan region, and North Africa.
The severity of desertification across the world prompted the United Nations Organisation in 1994 to adopt a Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), with a mandate to member states to prepare and adopt the National Action Programme (NAP). CDD was developed to protect and restore the land and ensure a safer, just, and more sustainable future. It is a multilateral commitment to mitigate the impact of land degradation and protect the land for food production, water, shelter, and economic opportunity to all people.
Nigeria ratified the NAP in 1994 as a mark of commitment towards addressing desertification, which had earlier been identified as the most pressing environmental problem in the drylands parts of the country, manifesting in the form of gradual shift in vegetation from grasses, bushes, and occasional trees to grass and bushes and, in the final stages, expansive areas of desert-like sand.
NAP 1994 revealed that between 50 % and 75 % of Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara States were being affected by desertification. The states, with a population of about 27 million people, then accounted for about 38 % of the country’s total land area, while population pressure resulting in overgrazing and overexploitation of marginal lands has aggravated desertification and drought.
Entire villages and major access roads have been buried under sand dunes in the extreme northern parts of Katsina, Sokoto, Jigawa, Borno, and Yobe States.
The Daily Trust reported in September 2023 that the country loses about 400,000 hectares of arable land every year to desert encroachment and other unsustainable human activities. In monetary terms, the country also loses around 5.1 billion dollars annually to rapid desertification and drought in many parts of the North.
Desertification has altered the order of life in the affected areas over the past three decades, as farmers who make up the nomadic population in northern Nigeria have been migrating to other regions in droves in response to the gradual and consistent encroachment.
Open water resources are shrinking as activities involving dry sand are increasing. The development further aggravated by the destruction of fertile lands through tree cutting, bush burning, and overgrazing. According to Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), many parts of Nigeria experience drought periodically, but Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara are the worst hit. The stormy sand dunes encroach at an alarming rate, leaving many people homeless and triggering incessant migrations.
Also, the Vanguard Newspaper of May 3, 2010 reported that an estimated 75 million hectares of land in northern Nigeria was threatened by desertification. This, it noted, portends grave danger to food security in Nigeria and, by extension, sub-Saharan Africa.
The Fulanis are the most affected ethnic nationality as their nomadic herdsmen are forced to move about in search of greener pastures in other parts of the country, a development that brings them into collision with the indigenous communities over the overstretched and depleted resources. This sad reality has been a major driver for farmer-herder clashes, some of which have been bloody and fatal.
Desertification can be controlled and affected areas reclaimed through measures such as afforestation and planting of soil-binding grasses, which can effectively check soil erosion, floods, and water logging. Crop rotation and mixed cropping are equally recommended because they improve the fertility of the soil. Another control measure is artificial bunds or covering the area with the proper type of vegetation.
Much more important is the need to enact protective laws and formulate ambitious policies for forest and biodiversity conservation in line with the latest climatic observations. These policies should be centred on sustainable forest management and national development. The 1994 National Action Programme must be tested for efficacy, and if found wanting, it should be updated to address the contemporary challenges posed by desertification.
Experts have also advised that the government invest in upgrading existing road networks instead of building major highways by cutting through farmlands and forests. The government is equally urged to encourage agricultural activities on existing farmlands rather than clearing new lands. The federal government provides incentives to states that protect their forest reserves and prioritise investment in regions with little deforestation.
There must be a sustained sensitization campaign at the grassroots to combat the negative effects of climate change and the impacts of global warming. The campaign, which should be carried out in various local languages and possibly dialects, should highlight the impacts of climate-induced events in various localities and in Nigeria as a whole.
Massive tree planting should be preached, with the government taking the lead by adorning public facilities with trees. When citizens behold the beauty and other benefits it offers, it will spur them to replicate the same on their private properties. Tree planting will help to recover the fading cultivable lands owing to desert encroachment and to limit the extent of deforestation across the country.
Laws against deforestation must be enforced, and necessary amendments must be made in line with the current realities. The local communities must be made to buy into governmental and non-governmental efforts towards addressing desertification and other related challenges. This is the magic wand for positive and sustainable outcomes.
Writing by Alfred Ajayi; Editing by Saadatu Albashir and Julian Osamoto.
