NEED OF DESERTIFICATION CONTROL

I live in the state of Rajasthan (India). A sizeable part of its western region consists of desert. I happened to visit these desert areas more than once and experience their beauty, as well as the vagaries. No doubt, the deserts provide plants and trees for various industrial, medicinal and other uses, as well as offer good opportunity for tourism but they also give lot of problems to the desert dwellers. The wild life in the deserts generally has an abundant population of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and insects and this also leads to loss of indigenous flora and fauna. The deserts also have a tendency to expand and encroach on other areas, converting fertile lands into deserts. We must therefore combat, arrest and control desertification and restore such lands for productive use. It is essential to assess and ascertain the causes and problems of desertification and adopt suitable strategies so that the deserts can be contained and ecological crisis can be averted. Further the ecology should be developed for a sustainable development of economic resources in the deserts. Such deserts exist at many places all over the world. Desertification is a global phenomenon, with severe ecological, economic and social consequences for the civilization over the period of time. Activities for controlling desertification and assessing potential for growth of other valuable plants in such areas deserve to be taken up at national and international level.