Word: deserted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Worst hit was the far northern province of Eritrea along the Red Sea, where the crop failure exceeded 80%. More than 40% of the harvest was lost in Tigre, 44% in Wollo and 35% in Harar, the Ogaden desert region that juts into Somalia. Altogether, nine of Ethiopia's 14 provinces are suffering food shortages...
...Allan Savory pads across the New Mexican desert followed by 30 ranchers, cowboys and range conservationists. We've come to Albuquerque for an intensive six-day workshop on the holistic management of natural resources: land, water, livestock and wildlife. Savory's special genius is combining high-minded idealism with thoroughgoing practicality, and he has a nose for generating profit in the process. His penchant for common sense is constantly fired by an indignation at how we have neglected our lands. "Nobody seems to care," he says, "and all the remedies have fallen short...
Slim and lithe in khaki pants, he moves like a deer over the desert floor -- not surprising since he spent his first 40 years in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as a wildlife biologist and tracker. "I slept on the ground most of my life," he told me. "No tent. Only a tarpaulin in case it rained. One night I woke up with a rhino sniffing my body. I just lay quietly. Another time I found a lion had eaten a whole cow next to me while I lay sleeping." He looks at his students and instructors, then out across...
Gradually, the riddle of how grassland becomes a desert unravels. It is most often believed to be ruined by overgrazing, but it can be abused by no grazing at all. "Grazing, like the use of rest, fire or technology, is only a tool applied by a human. You must look at the context, understand the landscape as a whole, observe keenly day by day and change your plans accordingly...
...veteran of African wars, he was shot earlier this year in an incident of racial violence while camping near Albuquerque. He shrugs. "I once said I'd shoot every bloody cow and rancher I came across. I thought unless we got rid of them, the whole world would become desert. But that kind of solution was wrong and counterproductive. Simplicity is the only thing I defend. I'd like to live with just a tin plate, a knife and a rifle in the African bush . . . knowing that the earth and all the watersheds were healing . . . I could die happy then...