ABSTRACT
There is clear, readily accepted evidence of resource degradation in many parts of the globe, and there are many other examples of claimed resource degradation that have yet to receive general acceptance. What are the cause or causes of this degradation? The underlying causes are to do with the shear level of pressure that is being placed on the resources of the globe by the combination of the number of people, their expectations in terms of goods and services and our technical capacity to utilise those resources to meet this demand. The level of degradation is also to do with our levels of consumption and wastage associated with production, distribution and sale of products. Some of this degradation results from inappropriate land use practices both in the use of the land for appropriate purposes and the use of inappropriate practices on the land. Thus, lands with steep slopes continue to be used for cropping even though extensive erosion results, and even moderately sloped land is cultivated with furrows down the slope by some farmers, again exacerbating the soil erosion problem. Our land use allocations and the practices adopted on those lands continue to be the major factors in exacerbating land degradation. It follows that improved land allocation and improved land using practices will significantly reduce land degradation. Changing land allocations and land using practices are management activities and so the way that we manage our rural lands is a major factor in the fight to reduce land degradation and to strive to achieve the goal of sustainable land using practices.
