General description of desertification in Latin America

Latin America encompass approximately one fourth of the desert and arid lands (20,553,000 Km2) of the world. The Latin American deserts of the Pacific coast stretch out from the Southern part of Ecuador across the Peruvian coast and up to the Northern part of Chile. Inland, at altitudes ranging between 3,000 and 4,000 meters, are the dry high plateaus of the Andean range, which cover extensive zones of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. East of the Andes, there is a wide arid region stretching out from the Northern foothills of El Chaco in Paraguay, to the Patagonia, South of Argentina. The Brazilian Northeast includes semiarid zones dominated by the tropical savannah.  Most of Mexico is arid and semiarid, particularly in the North.

Despite the large fresh water reserves of the region, water resources are unevenly distributed both in space and in time, thus affecting their availability in vast territories. Many countries of the region have large areas with water shortage, stretching over 4.5 million square kilometers. In South America’s case, 25.4% of its territory is arid or semi-arid land, including 9 countries of that sector of the continent; Central America includes two countries with 7.8% of the surface area with such environments. Several countries of the region, as well as significant sectors within some countries, are presently in a state of water stress, and it is projected that this situation will worsen significantly over the medium term. The areas affected by water shortage include a great variety of ecosystems and production systems associated with rich cultural expressions. However, over time, strong desertification processes have been developing as a result of a range of circumstances, producing loss of biodiversity and agricultural productivity, erosive processes and severe alterations in the hydrologic cycles of the affected watersheds. Extreme events such as droughts and floods have contributed to accelerate this situation.

Poverty and pressure on the natural resources are the main causes for the degradation of many such dry areas.  Out of the 465 million inhabitants of Latin America, some 110 million live below the poverty line. Among the most common non-sustainable practices identified are:, inadequate agricultural practices and soil uses, excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, abusive grazing and intensive forest exploitation and salinization due to inadequate irrigation-. All of this combined with frequent droughts and forest fires, does generally lead to land degradation. The resulting intense reduction of the ecosystems’ biological productivity, leads, in turn, to a low economic productivity of agriculture, livestock and agroforestry and, thus, to increased poverty among the region’s populations.    

Combating land degradation/desertification is essential to ensure the long-term productivity of drylands. Recognizing the enormous problem that humanity is facing while land degradation continues to worsen, 191 governments had joined the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. This Convention aims to promote effective action through innovative local programmes, supportive international partnerships and a very strong participatory approach Countries affected by desertification are implementing the Convention by developing and carrying out national, subregional, and regional action programmes. They should emphasize popular participation and the creation of an “enabling environment” designed to enable local people to reverse land degradation through self-help.

The Convention to Combat Desertification cannot be viewed in isolation from other efforts to promote sustainable development. There are many issues as climate change, biological diversity, water resources, energy sources, food security and socioeconomic factors that interact with desertification in many ways. So there is a need to coordinate desertification-related activities with the research efforts and response strategies inspired by these concerns.