It is no accident that our planet is called Earth. All terrestrial life depends on the fragile, friable crust of soil that coats the continents. This precious covering is painfully slow to form and can be destroyed terrifyingly fast. Just a single inch of soil can take centuries to build up! But, if mistreated, it can be blown and washed away in a few seasons. And earth is now rapidly vanishing all over the planet that bears its name. Nowhere is the crisis more acute than in the drylands which stretch across more than a third of the Earth's land surface. It is here that desertification takes hold. Desertification is land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. It threatens the livelihoods of more than one billion people and may drive over 135 million away from their land. The situation is especially dramatic in Africa, but action is also needed in other regions: Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America.
Furthermore, countries which are not directly affected bear some of its consequences, for desertification contributes to food insecurity, economic hardship, poverty and unrest, which in turn lead to population movements.
The UNCCD’s informal education programme targets everyone, from school-age children to adults. The cartoon booklet "There is no rug big enough to sweep the desert under" by cartoonist Guido Silvestri, tells the story of drought on an animal farm, and gives examples on how to conserve water, preserve forest cover and promote sustainable agriculture.