Over 50 million to be displaced in the next decade due to desertification; UN Report

Over 50 million to be displaced in the next decade due to desertification; UN Report
A UN report has warned the effect of spreading desertification, stating that more than 50 million people will be displaced in the next 10 years, mainly in the sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asian region.

The report states that climate change will intensify desertification and will lead to a "social turmoil" in the next decade. Environmentalists have urged the governments to chalk out steps to control desertification in their region.

"Desertification has emerged as an environmental crisis of global proportions, currently affecting an estimated 100 to 200 million people, and threatening the lives and livelihoods of a much larger number", the report said.

Zafaar Adeel, the study's lead author and head of the UN University's International Network on Water, Environment and Health, said that people will move into fertile regions, pressurizing the natural resources in those regions as well as threatening international instability. He added that people are already moving to more fertile regions of Europe or northern Africa.

"There is a chain reaction. It leads to social turmoil. The largest area is probably sub-Saharan Africa, where people are moving to northern Africa or to Europe. The second area is the former Soviet republics in central Asia", Adeel added.

The report suggests that incorporating new farming practices including afforestation and scientific plantings of crops were some of the simplest measures of slowing down desertification in the dry lands.