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• Environment
• national
• Science and Technology
• Personalities
• 03 / 30 / 2010

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Studies indicate that, one centimeter thick of soil may need between fifty, a thousand and two thousand years to form, depending on the geographic location.

A reason why it is a difficult to be a renewable resource which needs protection like forests, water or air.

Desertification and drought currently afflicting the planet have become a concern of Cuba, largely an agricultural nation; particularly the province of Las Tunas, which has 40 per cent of its area devoted to crops affected.

In Cuba, the phenomenon’s origin is due to exploitation, deforestation (many forests were cut down in order to use the terrain for agriculture or cattle rearing) and an intense and irrational use of natural resources.

According to Cuba´s Minister Sciences, Technology and Environment (CITMA), a wide plan of measures to cope with processes that lead to desertification is being implemented in the province.

The alarming food shortage worldwide by low -yield land, has made some experts think about the desertification  of soils and actions to mitigate its effects.

Desertification is the persistent degradation of dry land ecosystems, characterized by a lack of water. They include cultivated lands, scrublands, shrub lands, grasslands, savannas, semi-deserts and true deserts.

Desertification is largely caused by unsustainable use of scarce resources. And that is important, since human beings cannot survive a single day without environmental benefits such as air, water and soil.

Thus it is a mission of survival for mankind to respect the environment and to minimize its exploitation.

By Iris Hernández Rodríguez

Source: /www.periodico26.cu