During 1992, we witnessed at first hand the devastating impact of southern Africa's worst drought in living memory. Introduction. However, approximately two-thirds of the continent's productive land is degraded - it has lost its productive capacity . Oxford Press, New Delhi, India. Land degradation in the Sahel is characterised by soil degradation, mainly due to wind erosion. However, anyone who has travelled through the continent has observed that land degradation is widespread and serious. Serious erosion areas in Africa can be found in RSA, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana, Liberia,, Kenya, Nigeria, Zaire, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Senegal, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, the Sudan and Somalia. Land degradation has therefore become an alarming global concern. However, the economic implications of land degradation are particularly severe in Sub-Saharan Africa because 65% of the population is rural and the main livelihood of about 90% of the population is agriculture (Project By 2022, we will have improved the livelihoods, food security and climate resilience of 500,000 households by restoring ecosystem services, particularly through agroforestry. Change in three classes of land use 1960-2000 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 World r Deforestation and loss of wetlands Urban sprawl and infrastructure Degradation Sub- Saharan Africa East and Southeast Asia and China Latin America and The Caribbean Near East in North Africa and Asia South Asia PDF Chapter 4: Land Degradation - IPCC DOC Land degradation in South Africa - University of Cape Town LAND COVER CHANGE AND WOODLAND DEGRADATION IN A CHARCOAL PRODUCING SEMI-ARID AREA IN KENYA Short title: CHARCOAL, LAND COVER CHANGE AND WOODLAND DEGRADATION IN KENYA Harun M. Kiruki*ab , Emma H. van der Zandenb, Žiga Malekb , Peter H. Verburgb Harun M. Kiruki (*corresponding author) a School of Environment & Natural Resources, South Eastern Kenya University, P.O. Majority of the very poor, who heavily depend on natural resources, live on degraded lands.. It affects the land's topsoil, the vegetation that grows on it, and the nearby water sources. Given that livelihoods of the majority of the rural poor heavily depend on natural resources, countries in the region have designed a number of policies and strategies to address land degradation and to enhance productivity. Land degradation in the drylands, also called desertification, has affected the world for centuries, even millennia, in Africa, Asia, and Mediterranean Europe, for one or two centuries in the Americas, and 100 years or less in Australia. Land degradation has accelerated during the 20 th and 21 st centuries due to increasing and combined pressures of agricultural and livestock production (over-cultivation, overgrazing, forest conversion), urbanization, deforestation and extreme weather events such as droughts and coastal surges, which salinate land. Regreening Africa aims to reverse land degradation on 1 million hectares across 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper outlines the fundamental environmental constraints and . Desertification and Degradation of Africa's Rangelands 1997). In the region land degradation occurs mostly from soil erosion, chemical degradation (loss of nutrients, depletion of organic matter and acidification) and biological depletion. Forests are also helpful in binding up of soil particles with the help of roots of vegetation. 1990. An estimated 91 % of South Africa's total land area is considered dryland and susceptible to desertification. - 77 % of Africa is affected by erosion. Deforestation: Forests play an important role in maintaining fertility of soil by shedding their leaves which contain many nutrients. Regreening Africa Aims to Resolve Land Degradation. Meanwhile, an estimated 375 million young Africans are estimated to enter the job market within the next 15 years. Land degradation is estimated to affect about 230 million hectares annually. Kiruben Naicker of South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment said the report will help redirect investment "where it is needed most and complement the country . Is Land Degradation Neutrality in Africa Possible? Land degradation in the Sahel is characterised by soil degradation, mainly due to wind erosion. While many studies compare and contrast the effects of different management practices on soil properties . It is estimated that 25-35% of drylands are already degraded, with over 250 million people directly affected and about one billion people in over one hundred countries at risk. Currently, 40% of soil in Africa is degraded. Natural causes are only part of the explanation. Coastal erosion is the loss of sediment and bedrock from shorelines, causing receding beaches, cliffs and . The Project is to plant 7,000 indigenous trees around a degraded site at the Ngong Hills Forest Power Station where KenGen generates 25.5MW of electricity from wind power. Overgrazing and Range Degradation in Africa: The Need and the Scope for Government Control of Livestock Numbers Lovell S. Jarvis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics University of California, Davis Paper prepared for presentation at International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) October 1984 Concerns about, and efforts to address, land degradation are not new. It is the poor who are left struggling with this shortfall. Unless African governments, supported by the international community, take the lead in confronting the factors that cause nutrient depletion and land degradation, deteriorating agricultural productivity will seriously undermine efforts to bring about food security and to strengthen the foundations of sustainable economic growth in SSA. 2003. 67. Land degradation in Africa has been driven by extended drought, overcultivation, overgrazing and land clearing for housing. The main causes of land degradation in Africa include, inter alia,demographic growth, conflicts and wars with expanded refugees settlements, inappropriate soil management, deforestation, shifting cultivation, insecurity in land tenure, variation of climatic conditions and intrinsic characteristics of fragile soils in diverse agro- ecological zones. The country has a wide range of interrelated environmental and development challenges existing in a socio-political context recently subject to substantial change. It seeks to 1) directly reverse land degradation among 500,000 households across 1 million hectares of agricultural land in eight . The term of Desertification is mean the changing of productivity of land or land degradation in the arid, semi-arid and wetlands, as a result of the destruction of land due to soil erosion by both natural and human-made. The Problem Today . Land degradation is a serious impediment to improving rural livelihoods in the Eastern Africa region. Globally, 80 percent of land degradation is caused by agriculture. South Africa is a signatory to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and is aiming to achieve "land degradation neutrality" by 2030. The sand dunes movements and may be the result of Sahara spreading . 2. Land degradation is a negative change in the quality of land, usually induced by a mixture of natural and man-made causes. Current land degradation in Africa: Facts and Statistics. This is favoured by climatic factors such as drought and diminishing rainfall, compounded by . The term land degradation involves both soil and vegetation degradation. Kiruben Naicker of South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment said the report will help redirect investment "where it is needed most and complement the country . Land degradation—the deterioration or loss of the productive capacity of the soils for present and future—is a global challenge that affects everyone through food insecurity, higher food prices, climate change, environmental hazards, and the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Inline of this, highlighted that forest degradation spurs rural poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. The process of land degradation in Southern Africa is blamed on water and wind erosion, sedimentation, long-term destruction of vegetation and diminution of the bio-resources. Effective solutions will support resilient systems, and must cut across agricultural, environmental, and socioeconomic objectives. In drylands, land degradation is known as desertification. Degradation (cont) Also included is salinization of soils due to poor farming methods (inability of the inhabitants to employ appropriate/improved farming techniques). . Land degradation leads to the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of land. Land degradation and desertification are among of the world's greatest environmental challenges. Erosion and soil productivity in Africa. This paper considers the potential impact of future climate change on the nature and extent of land degradation in South Africa. INDP/UNEP/FAO. In South Africa, land degradation is a significant issue where nearly 60% of the land is degraded (United Nations Environment Programme, 1997) and 91% prone to desertification (Hoffman & Ashwell, 2001). 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