Desertification: Serious Threat or Global Myth? Are the world's arable lands being relentlessly consumed and degraded? Is this threat real and is it being adequately addressed in our agenda for the environment? Or are the warnings about desertification being overstated? Are we being diverted by alarmists without a real sense of global evolution? The United Nations Environment Program brings some perspective to this debate. It estimates that: · some 30 percent of the earth's land area suffers …showed first 75 words of 1316 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1316 total…the total cost of a 20 year rehabilitation programme, which would include: · protective measures in non-affected or slightly affected lands · corrective measures in moderately affected lands, · and the rehabilitation of severely (and very severely) damaged lands. Severity in Developing Countries Unfortunately desertification is the most severe in the countries least able to afford it - particularly the least developed countries of western and southern Africa. More than 80 of the 100 countries affected by desertification are developing ones.