World Development Report 1984

is so scarce, they can do so only once a day or once nutrients and organic matter, thereby exposing it
every other day. A more specific example is that of to erosion from the sun and wind. These direct
soybeans in Upper Volta. They are a new crop, are causes themselves spring from the pressures of
exceptionally nutritious, and have grown well, but rapid population growth. In trying to obtain more
they are not popular because they have to be food for themselves and their livestock, growing
cooked a long time. Similar experiences have been numbers of people frequently overstretch the carreported
in Haiti. rying capacity of semiarid areas: keeping produc-
Managed village woodlots, fuelwood planta- tion high during drought reduces the land's natutions,
or more efficient wood stoves could do ral resilience and sets it on a course to permanent
much to ease shortages. For example, a well-man- degradation.
aged woodlot planted with fast-growing trees can Although some 100 countries are affected by
yield as much as twenty cubic meters of wood per desertification, the process is most serious in subhectare
annually, six times the yield of an unman- Saharan Africa (particularly the Sahel), northwestaged
natural forest. However, these and other ern Asia, and the Middle East. Every year an addimeasures
are not easy to introduce. They require tional 200,000 square kilometers-an area larger
local testing and adaptation, large numbers of than Senegal-are reduced by desertification to the
trained staff, and adequate economic and institu- point of yielding nothing. And the process is acceltional
incentives. But the returns from forestry erating: more than 20 percent of the earth's surdevelopment
can be high. In Ethiopia, where fuel- face-now populated by 80 million people-is
wood shortages have become critical in some directly threatened. The human costs of desertifiregions,
estimated rates of return on investments cation often include malnutrition, threat of famine,
in rural forestry are on the order of 23 percent. and dislocation of people who must abandon their
Another major cause of deforestation is the lands to seek employment elsewhere.
expansion of agriculture. According to the FAO,
agricultural growth involves clearing more than 11 Urban population growth and internal migration
million hectares of forest a year, primarily in
response to popuiation pressures. Unless these Beyond a common concern, perceptions of the
marginal lands are given much commercial atten- problem of the distribution of population vary contion-fertilizers,
irrigation, and so on-they soon siderably among developing countries. Some see
tend to become eroded and infertile. When this the countryside as overpopulated in relation to its
happens the settlers clear more forest, a destruc- natural resources. Others complain of labor shorttive
and unsustainable process. Fertilizers are ages in remote but resource rich areas. Most comoften
an uneconomic remedy, being expensive and monly, however, maldistribution is described in
ineffective in the soil and rainfall conditions of terms of "overurbanization" caused by "'excesmany
tropical areas. sive" migration. In some developing countries,
rapid urban growth has undoubtedly caused seri-
Desertification ous administrative difficulties. Urban life requires
a complicated set of services-housing, traffic,
The effects of gradually spreading desert are often sewerage, water, and so on-that cannot quickly
confused with those of drought. But droughts, no be scaled up as population grows. City administramatter
how severe, are ephemeral; when the rains tions are usually short of money, and may anyway
return, the land's inherent productivity is lack the managerial skill to cope with a city that
restored. With desertification, even normal rainfall doubles its size in a decade. Where this happens,
cannot fully restore the land. In extreme cases, the results are familiar: unemployment, substandland
may remain unproductive for many genera- ard housing, deteriorating public services, congestions
unless costly remedies are taken. tion, pollution, crime, and so forth.
While drought can help to turn land into desert An overriding concern with the negative aspects
and make the effects more obvious to people living of urban growth, however, has often led policymathere,
most scientists agree that changes in climate kers to overlook some of the benefits to be gained
are not responsible for the vast areas of semiarid from internal migration and urbanization. As a
land going out of production each year. The direct result, many governments have chosen to carry
causes of desertification include overcultivation, out costly-and often economically inefficientovergrazing,
and deforestation. These practices programs to redistribute population. They would
strip vegetation from the topsoil and deprive it of have done better to have concentrated on rural
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