The solution to the desertification of the planet may well rest with women – since it is men who do most of the destroying.

In a hundred million years or so, when all our cities, buildings and bones are ground back into bedrock, the sole monument to humanity will be a thin, yellow stratum containing the vast deserts we created. How apposite that our only memorial should be one bearing witness to the most destructive deed of the most destructive animal ever to inhabit the Earth!

Drylands presently cover nearly half of Earth’s available land area and are home to 2.3 billion people, a quarter of the human population. Deserts are now spreading 30-35 times faster than their historical rates. Between 2001–2018, the global desert grew by 5,400 sq kms a year, an area the size of Brunei. Each year, 127,000 more people find themselves living in a desert. The impacts of desertification include sand and dust storms, food and water scarcity, extinctions, wars both local and international, species loss, disease spread, increased poverty and floods of refugees.

The simple definition of a desert is an area that receives less than 250 millimetres........

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