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Basic Facts on Desertification

Desertification occurs through land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities.
Desertification is not, as commonly thought, the actual expansion of existing deserts.
Desertification affects nearly one billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population.
Desertification is occurring in 70 per cent of all drylands, or one-quarter of the total land area of the Earth.
Desertification causes widespread poverty, and is responsible for much of the migration in the developing world.
Desertification is responsible for the degradation of 73 per cent of the world's rangeland.
Each year, the planet loses 24 billion tons of topsoil. Over the last two decades, enough has been lost to cover the entire cropland of the United States.
Desertification is especially severe in Africa, where two-thirds of the continent is desert or drylands, and where 73 per cent of its agricultural drylands are already seriously or moderately degraded.
Asia contains the largest amount of land affected by desertification of any continent-just under 1,400 million hectares.
Nearly two-thirds of Latin America's drylands are moderately to severely desertified.
Desertification costs the world more than $40 billion a year in lost productivity.