Desertification - an ugly word for an ugly process, which is
stripping away the very flesh of our planet. |ll land-based life
depends on the fragile crust of soil that coats the continents.
Without it, there would be no crops, no plants, no forests, no
animals - and no people. It is agonizingly slow to form, but can
be destroyed frighteningly fast. Building up just a few
centimetres of soil can take centuries. But misuse it, and it
can be gone in a few seasons. Once it is lost it is effectively
gone forever. Air and water pollution can be cleaned up. Oxygen
is replenished by natural processes. Water comes back with the
rain. But soil that has been eroded away will not be restored in
anything less than many generations. And yet this is happening
across a third of the entire landmass of the planet. Every year
it makes 12 million hectares of land - an area about the same
size as Liberia or the state of Mississippi - totally useless
for cultivation, and much more is so impoverished that it is no
longer economical