Our Planet, Volume 17, Number 1, 2006 Page: 27
31 p. : col. ill.View a full description of this periodical.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Our Planet
Dry Knowledge
Lively Enterprise
MARK STAFFORD SMITH says that deserts abound in
innovation and opportunities and describes ways in which they
are being harnessed and met in the world's driest continentAbout one third of the Earth's land
surface supports a sixth of its
population, a population often
disempowered and remotely governed,
which was once self-sustaining but
is now suffering from deserti cation.
It is easy to focus on the problems of
these regions, and they are indeedmanifold. Nevertheless, these are
also environments of great energy,
inventiveness and opportunity.
It is time that we put a realistic but
positive avour into talking about living
in the world's deserts. The International
Year of Deserts and Deserti cation
offers a chance to move away from thedisempowering language of catastrophe
embodied in the term 'deserti cation'
- language that risks institutionalising
desert people as perpetual victims,
recipients of welfare or aid.
Desert regions around the world
share a unique combination of features.
They face variable and unpredictable
biophysical, political and market
environments outside local control.
They are governed by remote centres
of power and are a long way from
markets. Their resources are generally
limited. They often have local (rich
patches) such as mineral wealth. And
their small populations are dispersed
and relatively mobile.
Desert living certainly means coping
with slender resources, enormous
variability, climatic extremes, and
daunting physical challenges. But
these same forces drive innovation and
create immense opportunities: It is no
coincidence that key social changes
have emerged from deserts over the
centuries.
In the face of adversity, desert
people have always innovated and they
still do. There is an immense diversity
of novel and creative energy in desert
regions around the world, but they
face the perennial problem of a lack
of critical mass. Their populations are
often too small to in uence policy
created in distant cities or markets
played out on the world stage. Desert
issues are perceived as too secondary to
attract coordinated, large-scale research
efforts.
Similarly, the hundreds of small-
scale innovations created every year in
deserts are each individually too small
to create a major new industry. They
must be drawn together and branded
as a single product of desert regions:
Desert Knowledge, or the understanding
of how to live well - sustainably,
economically and harmoniously - in
the desert. The world's driest continent
is using this idea to seek solutions to
the challenges of desert living.
Business partners
In a ground-breaking partnership, for
example,desertindigenouscommunities
are working with researchers from
Australia's Desert Knowledge
Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) topreserve and protect their knowledge
about the healing properties of their
traditional plant medicines. Laboratory24
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
United Nations Environment Programme. Our Planet, Volume 17, Number 1, 2006, periodical, 2006; Nairobi, Kenya. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28523/m1/27/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .