The Sahara, the world’s largest sand desert, covers 3.5 million square miles (9 million km2) - equivalent to the area of the United States - spread over eleven countries. Mauritania, which lies on its western border, is three-quarters desert and is thus particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon of desertification. Human activities such as excessive grazing, harvesting of firewood, and agricultural expansion are gradually destroying soil-retaining vegetation on the perimeters of the great dune ranges. This facilitates the advance of sand, which today endangers cities, including the capital, Nouakchott. In arid and semi-arid zones (which make up two-thirds of the continent of Africa), fragile arable lands deteriorate rapidly if farming and other exploitation become too intensive. In the past half-century, 65 percent of arable lands in Africa have suffered degradation, resulting in a drop in agricultural yield. In this vicious cycle, so difficult to break, poverty is both a cause an

Shop Online

	Print - Poster		View Now
	Postcard - Standard size postcard		View Now