ABSTRACT
The international debate on desertification that has developed since the early to mid-1970s is confusing and unbalanced. Desertification, drought and famine often coincide in poor areas. In Africa they seem to coincide with some regularity. Perhaps the biggest mistake of all has been to take the meaning of desertification for granted, devoting attention only to scientific detail. Desertification is a term used by both scientists and politicians, mostly by scientists in the hope of motivating politicians. Desertification processes can be mapped onto the distribution of marginalised populations. People who cause desertification do so in pursuit of what seem to them at the time to be reasonable objectives. Anti-desertification projects are invariably a form of aid, approved and implemented according to a combination of economic and political criteria. The same populations that are plagued by desertification suffer also from other problems, such as poverty and various forms of economic and political instability.
