Fun Facts

*Desertification affects nearly one billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population
*Desertification is occurring in 70 per cent of all drylands, or one-quarter of the total land area of the Earth
*Desertification causes widespread poverty, and is responsible for of the migration in the developing world
*Each year, the planet loses 24 billion tons of topsoil. Over the last two decades, enough has been lost to cover the entire cropland of the United States
*Asia contains the largest amount of land affected by desertification of any continent-just under 1,400 million hectares
*Nearly two-thirds of Latin America's drylands are moderately to severely desertified
*Desertification costs the world more than $40 billion a year in lost productivity.