Desertification is the deterioration of dry or semi-arid land resulting in an increasingly arid landscape, or desert, where plants are sparse and temperatures (cold and hot) are more extreme.
Why is Desertification a Problem in Africa?
The question of why desertification matters for the future of Africa is really two separate questions. Why is desertification happening in Africa? and, Why does it matter so much in Africa as compared to other parts of the world?
As the map shows, large sections of Africa are not at risk, and only some parts are very highly vulnerable. Much of the western United States, by comparison, has a very high vulnerability; according to UNESCO, a higher proportion of United States drylands are endangered than any other country, and Asia has 1.4 billion hectares at risk compared to Africa's 1 billion hectares.(Other studies argue that more of Africa, around 1.36 billion hectares, is at risk.)
Africa, however, is not as large as Asia; one billion hectares in Africa represents a much larger proportion of arable land. Around 43% of Africa is at risk of desertification. Moreover, a large proportion of people living in those territories are directly dependent on their environment for their livelihood and sustenance. The existing poverty of many dryland countries in Africa will make the effects of desertification more immediate and more traumatic. Recent famines and conflicts over resources in the Sahel have been tied to desertification in the region.
Sustainability - in the form of arresting soil erosion and desertification - are also essential to economic development. Wangari Maathai argued in her 2009 book, The Challenge for Africa, that the first and most crucial step to achieving the UN's Millenial Development Goals is sustainable land use and conservation. Without these, food security and economic development could only ever be temporarily achieved.
What are the Causes of Desertification in Africa?
Desertification has been going on for centuries, probably thousands of years, but the speed of desertification has increased in recent decades. Variations in climate, particularly rainfall, can cause desertification, but a healthy landscape can recover from temporary variations such as droughts. The primary cause of much desertification today, however, is human activity, and this can prevent drought stricken land from recovering.
The unsustainable use of resources, including deforestation, overgrazing, and intensive agriculture, are the main causes of human-driven desertification. Each of these causes is intensified by population growth, but they they are also linked to the demands of international trade.
The blame for desertification has often been put on local, peasant populations, who are presumed to be guilty of not caring about environmental issues or lacking the foresight to see the inevitable results of their (again) presumably destructive habits. Research by James Fairhead and Melissa Leach, however, showed that for nearly 100 years, foreign scientists had blamed local people in Guinea for deforestation, when a study of the land over that time showed little deforestation. Indeed, the forestation seen was the result of local efforts.
The causes of desertification in Africa are complex and cumulative, with many causes feeding into each other. Solutions must, therefore, be sophisticated and coordinated if they are to generate true sustainability and slow the spread of desertification.
Sources Consulted:
Fairhead, James, and Melissa Leach. Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic (1996).
Maathai, Wangari. The Challenge for Africa. (2009).
Reich, P. F, S. T. Numbem, R. A. Almaraz, and H. Eswaran, "Land resource stresses and desertification in Africa." In Responses to Land Degradation. Edited by E. M. Bridges,et al (eds). Proc. 2nd. International Conference on Land Degradation and Desertification, Khon Kaen, Thailand. (2001).
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, "Addressing desertification, land degradation and drought in Africa," (Accessed May 2015)
UNESCO and the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), "Where Does Desertification Occur?" (accessed May 2015).