"In the past fifteen years, the world's governments agreed on a set of goals. They agreed to protect the environment, to fight the spread of nuclear weapons, and to fight poverty. Six specific agreements stand out as crucially important. Three were signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio - to fight climate change, to fight the loss of biodiversity, and to combat desertification. Two nuclear agreements came a few years later - to extend the ban on proliferation, and to ban nuclear tests. Last came the Millennium Development Goals in September 2000, to slash extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015.

Taken together, I call these six commitments our Millennium Promises. They were undertaken in the shadow of the new Millennium, when the world yearned for meaningful commitments by our leaders."

Professor Jeffery Sachs, BBC Reith Lectures, 2007

Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. It is caused primarily by human activities and climatic variation. Over 250 million people are directly affected by desertification, including many of the world's poorest, most marginalized and politically weak citizens. more ...

DESIRE is a European Union funded research project whose aim is to find promising alternative land use and management strategies in selected areas of the world affected by desertification. A key aspect of DESIRE's approach is close collaboration between stakeholder groups and scientists. more ...

There are many international collaborations underway to combat desertification and promote sustainable development. more ...