One-Third Of Spain Facing Desertification - Spanish Gvt. Report

[hatrack]

The deserts of north Africa are threatening to leap the Mediterranean and creep through Spain, according to government figures made public as part of a national campaign to halt desertification. A third of the country is at risk of being turned into desert as climate change and tourism add to the effects of farming.

More than 90% of land bordering the Mediterranean from Almeria in the south to Tarragona in the north is considered to be at high risk. But that figure climbs to almost 100% in Alicante and Murcia.

Spain's environment ministry has announced a £50m programme to combat desertification. Over-grazing and irrigation methods that wash away topsoil were to blame for some of the damage, experts said. Building developments and climate change were doing the rest.

Spain builds an estimated 180,000 holiday homes along its coast every year. "We have grown too quickly without protecting areas of nature," Javier Pedraza of Complutense University, Madrid, said this week.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1509401,00.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Quite possible. The Sahara was once supposed to be the lushest

farmland in the world.

[thegreatwildebeest]

2. The UNEP...

The United Nations Environmental programme has a bunch of information about world-wide desertfications and the overuse of arable land available here:http://www.unep.org/themes/land/

There have been successes in rehabilitating land, but like many things, it feels like too little, too late. Also, the march will continue on as long as agribusiness and development companies are allowed to act without impunity.

[phantom power]

3. Our encroachment is simply outpacing our efforts to repair.

For every acre that we save or rebuild, 10 acres are taken away. It won't end until people develop the will to truly say "no more." Or, it will end when we destroy so much that it all crashes down around us.

It may be that we've condemned ourselve to option-B already, and we just don't know it yet. Most people seem to be under the delusion that we will be given some kind of unambiguous hazard-signs on the way to armageddon, and we can all just turn ourselves around before we get there. Maybe they expect Mother Nature to appear in person, and issue a statement on CNN. What they get is climatology geeks with charts and graphs. How could that ever compete with celebrity trials?

[thegreatwildebeest]

4. A scenario about that...

In the latest GEO report, GEO-3 (which was produced in 2002, has been slightly updated every year since by the UNEP since), they proffer four different visions of the world by the time of 2032. The most telling one, and the one I think we are on at the moment, is the Security First one. A world where the industrialized and powerful hoarde and exploit all the resources possible and leave crumbs to nothing for the rest. Dystopian to say the least.

That said, I don't feel like I should walk around with a sort of burnt out, jaded vibe to my activism. The machinations and moves of the opposition will continue on, and I will continue to talk to people about the issues and work on projects with other people and look to ways to reduce my ecological footprint and help others do the same. I don't like to think of just resigning myself to the fates and being the squaking "The End is Nigh" person on the corner of the road.

[phantom power]

5. You are not only a great wildebeast, you are wise.