En Aisén, Chile, se compararon distintos estadios de degradación antropogénica de la vegetación arbustiva original en una serie de distintos manejos de pastoreo, utilizando los indicadores ecológicos vegetales de Ellenberg para los factores de luz, temperatura del aire y de reacción, nitrógeno y humedad del suelo. El matorral de ñirre primario se consideró como inicio de la serie. Se trabajó con tablas de vegetación separadas para cada estado de degradación.

Land degradation occurs in all continents and affects the livelihoods of millions of people, including a large proportion of
the poor in the drylands. Opuntiaficus-indica (L.) Mill. is a xerophytic cactus species, widely cultivated in arid and semi-arid regions
worldwide. As most of species of the Cactacee family, 0. fiCUS-indica exhibits Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM), with
nocturnal stomata opening and C02 uptake occurring, typically, from dusk to dawn. Many reasons may account for the great interest

Brochure on "Community based Rainfed Watershed Management" project. A collective research, learning & demonstration project for increasing productivity and adapting smallholder farmers to climate change in rainfed dry areas.

T he Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) committed to the mitigation of the effects of climate change by signing the Kyoto Protocol for climate change and other related environmental management protocols. Since 1994, DRC has produced two national climate change communication documents (RDC, Ministère de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature, Eaux, et Forêts 2001; RDC, Ministère de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature et Tourisme 2009).

Climate warming and human actions both have negative impacts on the land cover of Mongolia, and are accelerating land degradation. Anthropogenic factors which intensify the land degradation process include mining, road erosion, overgrazing, agriculture soil erosion, and soil pollution, which all have direct impacts on the environment. In 2009–2010, eroded mining land in Mongolia increased by 3,984.46 ha., with an expansion in surrounding road erosion. By rough estimation, transportation eroded 1.5 million ha. of land.

Land degradation is severe in the steep sloping highlands in eastern Africa; natural resource management is central to good governance and increasing enfranchisement of rural people. Devolution, the transfer of roles, responsibilities and rights of natural resource management to institutions and communities has proved effective in accelerating adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) innovations beyond pilot sites. The SLM technologies practiced in the area include the use of trenches, contour bunds, terraces and agro forestry.

Land-degradation neutral world is an aspirational goal, which was agreed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. To achieve this goal, land degradation should be avoided and for every hectare of degraded land a hectare of land should be restored preferably in the same ecosystem and landscape. A land-degradation neutral world is a prerequisite for assuring water, food and energy security, alleviating poverty and mitigating climate change.

Drylands are complex social-ecological systems, characterized by non-linearity of causation, complex feedback loops within and between the many different social, ecological, and economic entities, and potential of regime shifts to alternative stable states as a result of thresholds. As such, dryland management faces a high level of uncertainty and unpredictability.

Drylands are characterized by physical water scarcity, often associated with land degradation and
desertifi cation. Other factors that contribute to these problems include high population densities,
unwise agricultural practices and overgrazing. However, while desert ecosystems are fragile and
vulnerable and can collapse in the short term, given the right conditions and protection, these
areas also have a great potential for recovery. Examples of the recovery of areas have led to the

El presente trabajo busca hacer una lectura estructural de algunas de las dinámicas agrarias y rurales de las últimas décadas en Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador y Nicaragua. Se busca mostrar varias dimensiones que interactúan en el medio rural, como son la estructura agraria, el uso del suelo, el incremento de la superficie en fincas gracias a la ampliación de la frontera agrícola, y la evolución de la población tanto nacional como sobre todo en el ambiente rural.

La degradación de la tierra se está acelerando, y las sequías van en aumento en todo el mundo. En la conferencia Río+20, los dirigentes mundiales reconocieron sin ambages que la desertificación, la degradación de la tierra y la sequía son problemas de dimensión mundial que afectan al desarrollo sostenible de todos los países, en particular los que están en desarrollo.

Ethiopia has great agricultural potential as it has vast area of fertile land, diverse climate, sufficient annual rainfall, & abundant labor force. However, the current performance of agric. is far below the potential, partly due to soil erosion & land degradation, lack of using improved technologies, lack of supportive services, poor socioeconomic infrastructure, & many more interrelated socioeconomic factors. Consequently, food insecurity & poverty have remained common features in the rural community.