Enabling poor rural people
to overcome poverty
- Land degradation is often a cause and a consequence of rural poverty. Desertification can cause poverty, and poverty can cause further desertification.
- The livelihoods of nearly one billion people in some 100 countries are threatened by desertification.
- Desertification contributes to internal displacement and international migration of people.
- About 25 per cent of the Earth’s land, or 3.6 billion hectares, is desertified.
- Every year about 12 million hectares worldwide are lost to land degradation, and the rate is increasing.
- More than 1 billion people in China could face reduced freshwater availability because of climate change and population growth.
- Every year desertification contributes to an estimated US$42 billion in lost incomes.
- By the 2050s, 50 per cent of agricultural land in Latin America will be subject to desertification.