Thesis Statement

Thesis statement: 

I first became interested in this topic when I was in Tanzania last January, staring out he window of a Land Rover at the passing scenery. I first notices the erosion damage on the outskirts of Arusha where a Marsscape of deeply eroded gullies and channels threatened to swallow trees and buildings. The erosion was caused by a combination of overgrazing by livestock and the increasing intensity of rain events. Government policies had been instituted to protect the scant vegetation on the eroded landscape but without topsoil, little will grow and the annual rains wash away more soil every year. As a snapshot of a much larger problem this scenario has many of the major players: subsistence agriculture in the form of grazing livestock, both urban and rural land-use pressures in a developing country, both drought and increased flooding combined with ineffective government land management policies.

There are many different projects world wide working to combat soil degradation in the face of climate change.  Land degradation also has a great diversity of causes; overuse, contamination, and processes associated with climate change, nearly all causes of major land degradation are the result of human activity. I am most interested in those regeneration approaches with the potential for proliferation in highly compromised conditions; places where resources are scarce and the possibility of external assistance is low. Anthropogenic causes of soil degradation are due in large part to poor management. If the vast number of subsistence farmers throughout the world can be mobilized to engage in the work of regenerating soils, the problem of soil degradation may be alleviated in a wide range of landscapes. Major challenges that the the field faces are numerous, most striking and immediately apparent is climate change. However, coupled with climate change is population growth which has placed increased pressures on the land. The lack of access to technology is a major stumbling block for many potential solutions, the technologies employed to create successful agriculture in Israel cannot be employed in Rwanda or Inner Mongolia, these impoverished regions affected by the twin threats of overgrazing and drought.

New processes are emerging to combat and degradation. Specialists in agronomic scientists and remote, rural farmers along with countless others are all working on this problem. Encouraging the growth of vegetation and drought tolerance may be one small piece of the solution in places experiencing reduced rainfall. The development of improved polices on land management may also help in places where compaction and overuse have caused land degradation.  Nothing can be achieved however without the participation of and benefit to the people who are currently most affected by the global land degradation crisis.