NOUAKCHOTT, 2 December 2008 (IRIN) - Environmental degradation, responsible for the dangerous displacement of sand dunes in Mauritania, has wiped out homes, livestock and livelihoods throughout the desert country. An October UN study estimated that land degradation costs nearly US$200 million annually in potential revenue losses and health care expenses.

UN researchers calculated the value of lost cultivable land, disappearing trees and water sources, along with the health care expenses from respiratory and waterborne illnesses related to the poor management of natural resources. The final estimated price tag: 14 percent of the government budget is swallowed up by environmental degradation, or about $192 million.

Some scientists have linked desertification, or land degradation in arid and semi-arid regions, to increasing global temperatures, while others emphasise human activities – like farming techniques and tree cutting – that they say have heightened the pace of degradation.

Buried

A botanist based in the capital Nouakchott, Abdellahi Ould Mohammed Vall, told IRIN Mauritania is at the front of the battle against the advancing desert. "The northern Saharan half of the country gets about 100mm of rain a year, while the more humid south gets about 150mm. Because of human behaviour the desert is advancing from north to south more rapidly than estimated decades ago. You see homes buried by sand in the capital."

Vall showed IRIN homes in Toujounine, a community 7km outside of Nouakchott. "This home here, even a bulldozer could not save it. This was the bedroom; this fissure is from the pressure of the sand." Five concrete homes with crumbled walls stood empty, surrounded by a row of aluminium-covered shacks.

Deforestation

UN researchers estimate that Mauritania's forests – with their charcoal, wood and food products – make up 60 percent of some communities' incomes.

The UN report on environmental degradation in Mauritania estimated it has one of the worst rates of deforestation in Africa, costing the country about $84 million every year in lost earnings.

Botanist Vall said poverty increases the rates at which people cut down trees, which further impoverishes communities. He added that droughts in the 1970s and 1980s forced nomads to settle, increased competition for water in pastoral areas, and led to increased migration to cities.

"People increasingly turned to cutting down trees after droughts to feed their animals and to supplement their pastoral livelihoods. But when forests disappear, there goes a food source for both animals and people," Vall told IRIN.

He said desertification has worsened as a result of barren spaces. "There is nothing to stop the harmattan [desert winds]. This is turning into a daily battle. It is very worrying to see bulldozers trying to clear sand from the national roads."

Vall said one of the most affected paths is the 150-kilometre stretch from Nouakchott to the city of Boutilimit: "If this road is cut off, 80 percent of the country could not get into the capital to resupply. This would essentially choke off commerce, including food supplies."

Interventions

Vall told IRIN that past tree-planting efforts have not been well planned, for example one using a resistant desert plant called prosopis, which he said the post-colonial government introduced in Mauritania in the 1970s. "This plant flowers year round, is resistant and appeared to be a good candidate to stabilise the desert. But its long roots draw water from local plants. Wherever it is planted, it has had the impact of wiping out plant diversity."

Vall said the mistake has been to rely primarily on one species to fight desertification. "We need to diversify solutions. There is no one magic tree, no magic species or solution to hold back the desert. It will take a combination to stabilise the sand and protect communities and livelihoods."

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