Fjölrit RALA - 05.12.1999, Page 18

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Future deserts and sustainable communities
While we talk about functional ecology, we have oversold the Clementsian para-
digm. We know that simply removing the causes of degradation will not guarantee
that desertification will be stopped, much less reverse the situation. Most people still
believe that if we just stop doing bad things to the land, it will retum to its former
state. Well-meaning public support is generally defensive rather than taking an active
role in land care to provide the needs of future generations.
Future needs are rather straightforward: food, shelter, security, beauty, cultural en-
hancement. But the wants to satisfy the cultural demands will be varied, complex, and
constantly changing. We live in a world where wants are created by advertising and
marketing experts. Modern communications send these “created wants” into even the
remotest sections of our globe. Dallas reruns are beamed into isolated villages. Soap
operas made in Rio De Janeiro become the standard in rural Mozambique. CNN is
now invited into homes where the propaganda machines of the USA and the former
USSR failed. While the needs of poor countries will continue to be for food, shelter,
and security, the future will find the wants of all people directly influenced by the cre-
ated wants of the rich. Here is one scenario of what may happen.
Demands from rangelands, those areas that are too hot, too dry, too cold, or too
high for crop agriculture or commercial forestry, will increase as the human popula-
tion changes. Traditionally, those areas have been used for pastoral purposes and sub-
sistence iivestock production, ignored by urban dwellers, and given a low priority by
national govemments. Many of the worlds rangelands are in the poorer nations; those
same countries have the highest rate of human population growth.
As the human population increases in the poor countries, more people will be
forced to use already depleted lands for subsistence livestock agriculture, fuelwood,
and other plant products. Ranges will continue to deteriorate until altemate lifestyles
are developed for the people and the pressure reduced on the land.
The worldwide demand for grain will increase, and ranges that are now marginal
cropland will be put to the plow. Another cycle of soil loss and reduced productivity
will occur in those transition areas between crop regions and true rangelands, espe-
cially in developing countries.
Rangelands in the wealthy countries of the world will see an increase in the trend
away from using land strictly for livestock production. Rangelands will probably im-
prove in condition as multiple uses and aesthetics replace the traditional quest for
maximum livestock production. There is a danger that housing developments and rec-
reational vehicles will extract an even greater damage than livestock if they are not
controlled.
The improving conditions of rangelands in rich countries and the further deteriora-
tion of land in poor countries continue to be positively correlated with the growing
human populations in developing countries and the stable and declining populations in
America and Westem Europe.
Our growing understanding of rangelands and better science provide tools to pre-
vent further deterioration of rangeland and improve those areas that are already dev-
astated. The ability to stop desertification will not be a technical or scientifíc fix; it
will depend on our ability to develop political, economic, and cultural programs to