By Jean Baptiste Ndabananiye
Desertification feels like destiny across Mauritania where advancing desert is threatening to erase history, uproot communities, and cripple livelihoods. This scourge is also ravaging other several nations in the world. “Desertification has become one of the most severe environmental challenges facing humanity, as it leads to more sand and dust storms, jeopardizes food security, displaces communities and fuels conflicts,” reports the State Council Information Office/People’s Republic of China in a 12 December 2024. Yet, the experiences of countries once on the brink of ecological collapse prove otherwise.
China’s Loess Plateau—once called “the most eroded place on Earth”—was restored through bold reforestation, terracing, and farmer incentives that transformed barren slopes into fertile landscapes supporting millions. In Israel, the Negev Desert, long synonymous with aridity, now produces crops for export thanks to innovations such as drip irrigation, wastewater reuse, and solar-powered alternatives to firewood. South Korea, devastated by war and left with bald mountains and desert-like conditions, achieved near-total reforestation within four decades through nationwide tree-planting campaigns, community participation, and strong government policies.
These stories show that desertification is not an irreversible fate but a challenge that can be met with vision, policy, technology, and people’s participation; forcing this plight to succumb. For countries like Mauritania, where dunes inch toward UNESCO heritage cities and fertile land shrinks, the question is not whether desertification can be defeated—it is how quickly bold action can be taken to adapt these proven lessons to local realities.
Desertification in Mauritania and other nations
The ancient Mauritanian city of Chinguetti, once a hub of Islamic scholarship and trade, is now being engulfed by encroaching desert sands. Centuries-old homes, mosques, and libraries housing priceless manuscripts face the threat of burial as climate change intensifies droughts and sandstorms. Residents describe the crisis as a slow-motion disaster, with many families forced to abandon their homes while those who stay struggle to keep sand from overtaking streets and buildings.
Tree-planting efforts and proposals for “green belts” offer some hope, but the scale of desertification far outpaces these measures. For many in Chinguetti, the advancing Sahara represents both an existential threat and a test of resilience against forces of nature worsened by global warming.
A 23 February 2025 story headlined “Encroaching desert threatens to swallow Mauritania’s homes, history” published on the Voice of America from Associated Press reads “For centuries, poets, scholars and theologians have flocked to Chinguetti, a trans-Saharan trading post home to more than a dozen libraries containing thousands of manuscripts. But it now stands on the brink of oblivion.
Shifting sands have long covered the ancient city’s 8th-century core and are encroaching on neighborhoods at its current edge. Residents say the desert is their destiny. As the world’s climate gets hotter and drier, sandstorms are more frequently depositing centimeters of dunes onto Chinguetti’s streets and in people’s homes, submerging some entirely. Tree-planting projects are trying to keep the invading sands at bay, but so far, they haven’t eased the deep-rooted worries about the future.”
The story highlights that the community leader, Melainine Med El Wely, feels agonized over the stakes for residents and the history held within Chinguetti’s walls. He likens it to watching a natural disaster in slow motion. “It’s a city surrounded by an ocean of sand that’s advancing every minute,” El Wely, the president of the local Association for Participatory Oasis Management, has said. “There are places that I walk now that I remember being the roofs of houses when I was a kid. We’re convinced that desertification is our destiny. But thankfully, there are still people convinced that it can be resisted.”
This story continues “Chinguetti is one of four UNESCO World Heritage sites in Mauritania, a West African nation where only 0.5% of land is considered farmable. Mauritanians believe Chinguetti is among Islam’s holiest cities. Its dry stone and mud mortar homes, mosques and libraries store some of West Africa’s oldest quranic texts and manuscripts, covering topics ranging from law to mathematics.”
The International Partnerships—European Commission also explains that almost entire Mauritania constitutes a desert. “Mauritania is a West African country which borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west for about 750 km. Approximately 90% of its landmass is located within the Sahara Desert. Despite its substantial size, Mauritania has a population of 5 million people – and it is one of the less densely populated countries in the world.”
This country’s area equals 1 030 000 sq km, according to some sources while others add another 700 sq km. According to the World Bank, this nation carries a population density of 5 inhabitants per square kilometer, with more than half of Mauritanians (61.3%) living in urban areas (2024).
Mauritania’s population density is extremely low, compared to its vast size. While we have not been able to identify a single source explicitly clarifying the reason, this low density is likely influenced by the country’s harsh environmental conditions, particularly its vast desert areas. The Sahara Desert covers most of Mauritania, making large parts of the land inhospitable for settlement or agriculture. Limited water resources and arid climate further restrict where people can live. As a result, the population is concentrated in a few urban and fertile regions, leaving much of the country sparsely inhabited.
The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world, and the third largest overall after the Antarctica and the Arctic, according to Global Adventure Challenges. “The Sahara Desert covers an incredible 9.2 million km², which is almost the same size as China, and a total of 8% of the earth’s land area. Impressive!”
Desert across the globe
The threat of desertification is growing at an alarming rate worldwide. “Desertification was described as ‘the greatest environmental challenge of our time’ by the UN’s top drylands official in 2010, Luc Gnacadja. Since the early 1980s, a quarter of the planet’s inhabitable land has been despoiled; now, climate change is making things worse,” points out Earth. Org with its 11 August 2021 story headlined “Mapping The Shocking Extent of Desertification”.
Earth.Org explains “Desertification is quite hard to define, but generally speaking, it is the process by which lands become infertile through a variety, and often a combination of mechanisms. One of these is soil erosion, by which it is stripped of nutrient-rich topsoil by the action of wind, water and waves, all natural processes which are exacerbated by poor agricultural practices that leave the land bare. Overuse of fertilizers can leave the ground acidified, just as saltwater intrusion can leave it salinated. And finally, climate change can make droughts too intense, and wildfires too frequent for the land to bear.”
Acidified ground refers to soil that has become overly acidic, often due to pollution, acid rain, or excessive fertilizer use. This condition reduces soil fertility, harms crops, and disrupts ecosystems, threatening food security and biodiversity. “Overly acidic” means the soil’s natural balance has shifted so much that it contains too much acid for healthy plant growth.
Earth. Org points out “Desertification is assailing the world’s arable lands. Increased drought, poor land-use decisions and bad agricultural practices leaves much of our land open to erosion, nutrient loss and other problems, eventually leaving it infertile. Most of the world’s soil is currently in degraded condition, and this could rapidly become the biggest environmental problem on earth.”
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in its story titled “Soil erosion” states that a total of 75 billion tons of fertile soil is removed every year from the global soilscape by erosion. “As a result, precious soil resources, which should be preserved for future generations, are continuously reduced. Every year approximately 12 million ha of land are lost (FAO and IAEA, 2017).
Because 95% of the food consumed globally comes from the soil, soil erosion mitigation through the application of sustainable soil management is critical for protecting soil while ensuring a sustainable and food secure world (FAO, 2020).”
While China, Yemen, Kenya, Mali, Russia, Syria, and Tunisia are examples of countries facing desertification, many others also struggle with the problem, often worsened by climate change, deforestation, and unsustainable land use. We will come back to the situation in these countries in a separate article.
Global success stories—their lessons
China – Loess Plateau Restoration
The Loess Plateau faced severe soil erosion, desertification, and declining agricultural productivity as a result of widespread deforestation and overgrazing. To combat these challenges, large-scale reforestation and grassland restoration programs were launched, accompanied by the introduction of farming techniques—like terracing, to reduce soil erosion.
Farmers were also relocated from the most degraded lands and encouraged to adopt sustainable agricultural practices. These interventions produced remarkable results: millions of hectares of degraded land were restored, crop yields increased significantly, and dust storms reaching Beijing and other cities were reduced. Furthermore, ecosystems began to recover, with rivers regaining flow and groundwater levels improving.
“All the birds returned: How a Chinese project led the way in water and soil conservation” is the title of a story published by The Guardian on 14 March 2025. It reads “The Loess plateau was the most eroded place on Earth until China took action and reversed decades of damage from grazing and farming. It was one of China’s most ambitious environmental endeavours ever.
The Loess plateau, an area spanning more than 245,000 sq miles (640,000 sq km) across three provinces and parts of four others, supports about 100 million people. By the end of the 20th century, however, this land, once fertile and productive, was considered the most eroded place on Earth, according to a documentary by the ecologist John D Liu. Generations of farmers had cleared and cultivated the land, slowly breaking down the soil and destroying the cover. Every year, the dust from the plain jammed the Yellow River with silt (this is how the river gets its name), sending plumes of loess, a fine wind-blown sediment, across Chinese cities – including to the capital, Beijing.”
The story adds “And so in 1999 the Chinese government took drastic emergency action with the launch of Grain to Green, a pilot project backed by World Bank funding, to regreen the plateau and reverse the damage done by overgrazing and overcultivation of the once forested hillsides that would become what the bank described in 2004 as ‘the largest and most successful water and soil conservancy project in the world’.”
Israel – Negev Desert Transformation
The Negev region struggled with aridity, soil degradation, and limited agricultural productivity. To address these challenges, Israeli engineers pioneered advanced irrigation technologies, most notably drip irrigation, while agroforestry and soil enrichment programs were introduced to enhance soil fertility. In addition, salt- and drought-resistant crops were cultivated to expand the range of arable land. Salt-resistant crops also known as halophytes are plants which thrive in saline soils.
The measures have transformed the desert landscape, turning once-barren areas into productive agricultural zones. As a result, Israel now exports crops from regions that were previously unproductive, showcasing how the integration of technology and sustainable practices can turn desertification into an economic opportunity.
Desert lands have become productive agricultural zones, and Israel now exports crops from previously unproductive regions. The combination of technology and sustainable practices turned desertification into economic opportunity.
“Israel has gained a worldwide reputation for its ability to turn barren desert into useful and arable land. ISRAEL21c takes a look at the country’s top 10 eco-strategies,”—words featured in a 15 July 2012 piece of writing entitled “10 top ways Israel fights desertification” released by Israel 21c.
“Help fish swim in the desert. Vast desert land does not need to go to waste when practical high-value crops –– especially alternative ones like aquaculture –– can very much thrive there. Professors Shmuel Appelbaum and Dina Zilber from Ben-Gurion University helped perfect a system to grow fish in the desert. Their system takes low-quality brackish water –– water that has a high salt content –– and pumps it up onto land into pools for raising marine fish. This provides an entirely new source of protein, and income, for desert-dwellers. The conditions in some deserts are also optimal for raising aquarium fish, and Israel is starting to harvest attractive guppies for export to Europe.
Making the most from the sun. In developing nations, people still cut trees for firewood. This causes desertification from lack of vegetation to hold the soil and its nutrients in place. Rain washes away the topsoil, leaving worthless sand behind. Israel’s advances in off-grid solar energy power plants for individual homes or villages can help change that by offering a clean, renewable alternative. Ben-Gurion Prof. David Faiman has developed a concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) cell perfect for developing nations facing deforestation, and he is just one of dozens of Israeli researchers and companies working in this direction.”
Berliner told ISRAEL21c “Israel is helping combat desertification by making solar power a viable alternative to the conventional way of chopping down trees for firewood.”
Those, besides wastewater management, are three of the top approaches which have permitted this country to successfully defeat the desert. “Almost all of Israel’s successes rest on the fact that Israel has been able to excel at wastewater management on a scale that no other country has ever matched. A whopping 50 percent of Israel’s irrigated water comes from recycled wastewater, according to Berliner, and much of this recycles through JNF planted forests. The country that comes closest to Israel’s level of water reuse is Spain, which only reuses about 20% of its liquid resource,” the story explains with regard to wastewater management.
South Korea—Post-War Reforestation
After the Korean War, South Korea encountered severe deforestation and soil erosion. The government therefore launched a nationwide reforestation campaign, planting over 2.1 billion trees and implementing erosion control measures. Policies included tree planting, erosion control, and forest protection, along with promoting food production in forests. By 2021, South Korea achieved almost complete reforestation, with forest cover increasing from 35% in the 1960s to over 65% today.
In the 1960s and 1970s, South Korea faced widespread deforestation, severe soil erosion, and desert-like conditions in several regions. To reverse this degradation, the government launched nationwide reforestation campaigns, most notably the “Green Korea 21” initiative, and invested heavily in terracing, flood control, and sustainable land management.
Communities also played a crucial role through large-scale tree planting and soil conservation programs. These collective efforts transformed the landscape: forest cover expanded from just 35% in the 1960s to over 65% today, previously barren hills now sustain both agriculture and wildlife, and South Korea has become an international model for successful land rehabilitation.
CDR Law produced a policy brief “How the Republic of Korea Successfully Implemented a Country-Wide Reforestation Policy within 40 Years” last updated in 2018. The brief states “Until the late 1950s, 58% of the mountains in the Republic of Korea were bald, while 11% of the land was barren like a desert. From the early 1960s, the government established the forest laws and reformed the forest administrative organizations, while making comprehensive reclamation policies.
Also, through the strict execution of the related policies and the follow-up management of the planting sites, every denuded land was successfully recovered within 40 years. Such a success was possible by the creation of incomes and incentives for the village farmers through the forest reclamation projects, and voluntary participation of the farmers through the Saemaul (New Village) Movement in addition to favorable economic and social conditions. With foreign aid assistance, the mobilization of nongovernment organizations, the community, and other key stakeholders, the government of the Republic of Korea was able to implement policies for a successful country-wide reforestation program.”
This mechanism of incomes and incentives for the farmers in South Korea was also applied by China, according to The Guardian. China launched the “Grain for Green” project in 1999, converting 2.8 million hectares of farmland to forest and grassland. Measures included banning tree-cutting and overgrazing, providing grain and cash subsidies, and converting farmland to sustainable uses. Vegetation cover increased by 25%, and soil erosion was significantly reduced. The project also helped to curb dust storms affecting cities like Beijing.
“There were grain and cash subsidies for people converting farmland to grassland, economic forest or protected ecological forest. There were tax subsidies and benefits to offset farming losses, long-term land use contracts and conversion to more sustainable farming including orchards and nuts, and widespread tree-planting employment programmes.”
As a result, “By 2016, China had converted more than 11,500 sq miles of rain-fed cropland to forest or grassland – a 25% increase in vegetative cover in a decade, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change. Other studies showed large reductions in erosion and positive changes in plant productivity.”
The forestry worker Yan Rufeng told the state-run news channel CGTN “When the environment improved, all the birds returned. The forest has developed its ecological system naturally”.
Thus, desertification can be battled anywhere
What Chinguetti’s residents call destiny is not unchangeable fate but a challenge awaiting decisive leadership and collective will. As the global record shows—from China’s vast re-greening to Israel’s desert farming and South Korea’s reforestation—even the harshest landscapes can be transformed when people refuse to surrender to the sands. The following details also corroborate it.
“Delegates from around the world are convening for the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) here on Dec. 2-13 to seek agreements and accelerate joint actions to support sustainable land management and climate resilience. Since signing the convention 30 years ago, China has become the largest contributor to global greening and an international model for desertification control.
Through the program [Three-North Shelterbelt Forest], China has created the world’s largest man-made forest in Saihanba in northern China’s Hebei Province, completed the world’s largest ecological restoration project in Maowusu in northwestern China’s Shaanxi Province, and turned the Kubuqi Desert in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region into a green land,” reads a 12 December 2024 story titled “Why China’s green drive matters to global desertification battle”. The story features on the State Council Information Office/People’s Republic of China, conspicuously from Xihnua.
It adds “China has one of the world’s largest affected areas, particularly in the northwestern, northern and northeastern regions that feature vast dryland and desert. One of the country’s landmark ecological projects is the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program. Since 1978, the project has added 32 million hectares to afforestation areas and treated 85.3 million hectares of degraded grassland and 33.3 million hectares of desertified land.”
“‘I was moved by the images of different generations of Chinese people fighting desertification and by China’s leadership in this process,’ said UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary Andrea Meza Murillo, commending the nation’s long-term commitment and innovative approach to combating desertification.”
The Sahara, now the world’s largest hot desert, was once a thriving ecosystem of seas, mangroves, and grasslands teeming with giant catfish, sea snakes, molluscs, and even crocodile-like creatures. This history affirms that the Sahara was not always a barren wasteland but a fertile region shaped by shifting climates and environments. Its transformation into desert underscores that desertification is not destiny but a process—one influenced by both natural cycles and human activity.
Today, success stories from places like China’s Loess Plateau, Israel’s Negev Desert, and South Korea demonstrate that degraded land can be revived through sustainable practices. Taken together, the Sahara’s past fertility and modern restoration models substantiate a powerful truth: deserts can be reclaimed, and life can return where once it seemed impossible.
The Guardian— in its 12 July 2019 article entitled “Sahara was home to some of largest sea creatures, study finds”— reports “Scientists reconstruct extinct species using fossils found in northern Mali from ancient seaway. Some of the biggest catfish and sea snakes to ever exist lived in what is today the Sahara desert, according to a new paper that contains the first reconstructions of extinct aquatic species from the ancient Trans-Saharan Seaway.
The sea was 50 metres deep and once covered 3,000sq km of what is now the world’s biggest sand desert. The marine sediment it left behind is filled with fossils, which allowed thescientists who published the study to build up a picture of a region that teemed with life. Between 100m and 50m years ago, today’s arid, boulder-strewn northern Mali ‘looked more like modern Puerto Rico’; the sun shone on some of the earliest mangroves, and molluscs lined the shallow seabed, according to Maureen O’Leary, the palaeontologist who led the study.”
The platform, Futurity in its 9 July 2019 story headlined “Ancient ‘seaway’ used to cover the Sahara Desert”, says “The region now holding the Sahara Desert was once underwater, in striking contrast to the present-day arid environment.” These words are exactly echoed by the US National Foundation, with its 15 July 2019 story titled “Ancient Saharan seaway illustrates how Earth’s climate and creatures can undergo extreme change”. It says “The Sahara Desert was once underwater, in contrast to its present-day arid environment.”