Desertification and Land Degradation

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, adopted in Paris in 1994 and entering into force in 1996, defines desertification as land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas resulting from a combination of climatic variability and human activity. The convention emerged directly from international alarm over the Sahel drought of 1968-1985, a prolonged rainfall failure across Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Senegal that killed well over 100,000 people, decimated livestock herds, and displaced millions, becoming one of the defining humanitarian and environmental crises of the late twentieth century.