Why is important to study land degradation in arid lands
Answers
Desertification of the arid lands of the world has been proceeding--sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly--for more than a thousand years. It has caused untold misery among those most directly affected, yet environmental destruction continues. Until recently, few if any lessons seemed to have been learned from the past, in part because the problem was an insidious one that went unrecognized in its early stages or was seen as a local one affecting only a small population, and in part because new land was always available to start over again. As long as remedial action could be deferred by moving on to new frontiers, land conservation had little appeal. It was not until the 20th century--when easy land expansion came to an end--that governments and people finally realized that continued careless degradation of natural resources threatened their future.