The Dry World: Deforestation In The Middle East

The “Dry World” refers to the North African and Southwest Asian region. This name does not portray the entirety of the region because the reality is the region has an incredibly diverse climate (and therefore land).Across North Africa and into eastern Iran lies a vast desert land. Whereas in the Atlas Mountains and the lowlands of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia the Mediterranean climate allows for a lot of flora which makes the area resemble southern Spain. Needless to say, Southwest Asia and North Africa are more than desert—the humid and elevated areas provide a lot of biodiversity. One would think that these elevated areas are densely forested. That is not the case. As a result of human settlement the landscape has become increasingly vulnerable. Although the deforestation is not as severe as in some parts of the Greater Antilles it is still an issue. Other examples of human modification done in an attempt to improve the economy and lifestyle include overgrazing, salinization, and modifying water flow. The line between economic development and environmental protection has always been a difficult one to spot, but for this region it is essential that they find a reasonable compromise between the

This is the practice of applying water to the land or soil “to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils (Wikipedia).” This practice greatly helps with growing crops but it has adverse effects. One of them is salinization. Salinization is the buildup of toxic salts in the soil. The salts destroy fertile farmland. This can be seen in Iraq near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Iran, Egypt, and North Africa. Although irrigation allows for a fast production of crops it will eventually ruin the farmland where it is practiced. Thus since irrigation will lead to the inability to grow crops it is a bad practice and only temporarily benefits the