Impact statement

Most people conceive of the drylands of the world as ruined wastelands, an old story that is negatively impacting their management. Drylands, which are found on just under half of our landmass, do receive low and variable rainfall but, for the most part, are not barren, deforested or overgrazed. Drylands are home to about 2.5 billion of our people and many of them are skilled at managing their environments. A long-standing and misleading environmental story, though, has biased the administration and harmed local peoples of the drylands for many decades. Deeply rooted in the old belief that trees are the “best” vegetation and should cover most of our lands, arborocentrism, this environmental story is one of destruction by local peoples that is often termed desertification. This is based on several misconceptions of the drylands that are explained and corrected in this article. Moreover, several examples are provided of the inherent value of drylands and the ways in which local peoples care for and improve their dryland environments. The article advocates for the abandonment of both the word and the idea of desertification which embodies most of our common misconceptions of drylands. It concludes that doing so will lead to better policies for and management of the drylands and a more equitable, sustainable outcome for the people who live there.

Arborocentrism and desertification

Arborocentrism, tree-centric thinking, has a long and complex history, involving desiccation theory, notions of the “balance of nature” and concepts of potential vegetation (and related maps), much of which was developed during the period of western exploration, colonialism and imperialism (Davis, Reference Davis2016). As early as the 18th century, arborocentrism, largely through “scientific” forestry, demonized both fire and grazing in Europe and elsewhere with long-lasting effects.Footnote ³

The prevailing Anglo-European beliefs were summed up well during the colonial period by the widely read American scholar-diplomat George Perkins Marsh who declared in his influential 1864 book that nearly the entire land mass of the world used to forested. Marsh subsequently clarified that “forests would soon cover many parts of the Arabian and African deserts, if man and domestic animals, especially the goat and the camel, were banished from them” (Marsh, Reference Marsh and Lowenthal1965 [1864], p. 117). We know from paleoecology, to the contrary, that our entire landmass has never been completely forested, especially in the drylands, although forests have moved slowly over time accompanying significant climate shifts (Roberts, Reference Roberts2014).

Nonetheless, within a dozen years of Marsh’s book, these rather vague notions that most of the world should naturally be forested began to be quantified with the development of the “rate of forest cover.” This took shape first in French colonial Algeria in the mid-1870s as a measure of “civilization” was quickly adopted by scientific forestry throughout Anglo-European institutions, was written into the curriculum of most forestry schools and then was dispersed around the world (Davis and Robbins, Reference Davis and Robbins2018). A minimum rate of 30%–33% forest cover was deemed necessary for “civilization” as well as environmental health, and this notion spurred countless afforestation projects (often in the name of reforestation) around the globe (Davis and Robbins, Reference Davis and Robbins2018).Footnote ⁴ This rate of forest cover became so widespread and normalized that it essentially reached the level of dogma in most colonial territories by 1925 (Guillard, Reference Guillard2014 [1999]). In the drylands and elsewhere, it furthered the colonial project with a drive for “reforestation” on expropriated land considered desertified that belonged to (or was utilized by) local populations (Cline-Cole, Reference Cline-Cole, Leach and Mearns1996; Fairhead and Leach, Reference Fairhead and Leach1996; Grove, Reference Grove1997; Balooni and Singh, Reference Balooni and Singh2007; Davis, Reference Davis2016).

Arborocentrism was scientifically bolstered by common interpretations of Clementsian ecological theory of linear vegetation succession to forest (climax) as well as by notions of carrying capacity in the early 20th century (Sayre, Reference Sayre2010, Reference Sayre2017). Common or “lay” perceptions of succession to climax most often envision the progression of bare or disturbed ground to closed canopy forest (Blumler, Reference Blumler, Zimmerer and Young1998; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux, Reference Benjaminsen and Hiernaux2019b, pp. 219–220) and do not usually consider the nuances of Clementsian succession for tall grass prairies or deserts (Clements, Reference Clements1916, Reference Clements and Goodspeed1936). Such common interpretations of succession fit well with arborocentrism, and Clements shared the underlying imperial world view, even of the western United States where the effects of settler colonialism were obvious. As Nathan Sayre explains, “the express intent of Clements’ theory, then, was to aid in the successful colonization and agricultural settlement in “new countries” – an anodyne allusion to the then-still-recent conquest and dispossession of Native Americans” (Sayre, Reference Sayre, Carnell and Mounsey2023, p. 180).

The power of arborocentrism haunts us today in many ways, including the problematic United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) definition of forests as areas with tree canopy of 10% or greater (Briske et al., Reference Briske, Huntsinger, Sayre, Scogings, Stafford-Smith and Ulambayar2025) and the (over)reliance on surface vegetation monitoring (NDVI, etc.) to assess dryland ecosystem health. This reliance on remote sensing of aboveground vegetation misses underground biomass, such as soil seed banks, bulbs, etc., invisible much of the year, that are also key indicators of ecosystem health in many drylands (Batanouny, Reference Batanouny2001). Arborocentrism is furthermore influential in the decisions that result in a large majority of funding for research and conservation globally going to arboreal environments like forest biomes and very little to the drylands (Durant et al., Reference Durant, Pettorelli, Bashir, Woodrofe, Wacher, de Ornellas and Ransom2012; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Huntsinger, Sayre, Scogings, Stafford-Smith and Ulambayar2025). Briske et al. make a strong and convincing case for the nomenclature of Grassy Biome to be applied to our nonforested, nonagricultural lands (including most drylands) to try to combat this ingrained arboreal chauvinism.

Many discussions of the common “misconceptions” of deserts and drylands proceed as if the misconceptions are simple misunderstandings that can be cleared up with more publications and better outreach. What is not widely recognized, however, is that most of our common “misconceptions” about deserts and drylands are the result of a body of knowledge that was constructed over centuries by powerful actors, usually imperial/colonial. These ideas about the environment and local/indigenous populations were developed in large part to justify and facilitate taking control of land, resources and local peoples (Leach and Mearns, Reference Leach and Mearns1996; Grove, Reference Grove1997; Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Goldstein, Reference Goldstein2012; Davis, Reference Davis2016). Power, “improvement” and profits of various kinds were usually the primary goals. These colonial roots of many of our misconceptions of drylands are not yet sufficiently widely understood.

In contrast to the more humid, green and arboreal environments housing the seats of power in France, England, Germany and parts of North America, the drylands encountered in colonial territories around the world were variously perceived as barren and generally thought to have been laid waste by the activities of the local peoples who were assumed to be ignorant or malevolent, especially toward trees (Trottier, Reference Trottier1869; Trolard, Reference Trolard1891; Macdonald, Reference Macdonald1914; Leach and Mearns, Reference Leach and Mearns1996). It was widely believed that the locals had created “desert-like conditions” by most colonial (and non-colonial) administrations in their dryland territories (Hough, Reference Hough1874; Jacks and Whyte, Reference Jacks and Whyte1939; Ribbentrop, Reference Ribbentrop1900; Sears, Reference Sears1935; Stebbing, Reference Stebbing1935).

More often than not, these ideas were supported and perpetuated by colonial foresters, whereas geographers, agronomists or other biophysical scientists were usually more cautious about drawing firm conclusions about drylands being former forests and about “desertification” in general (Swift, Reference Swift, Leach and Mearns1996; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux, Reference Benjaminsen and Hiernaux2019b). Paul Boudy, Director of Forestry in colonial Morocco, is emblematic of the dominant viewpoint among foresters of the period. In 1927, he taught new colonial recruits that “it is scientifically proven that the formation of sand deserts … is due to deforestation, the work of ancient nomadic peoples …. A certain proportion of forest is in effect indispensable for a country to be really habitable … this proportion has been fixed theoretically and practically at 30%” (Boudy, Reference Boudy1927, pp. 21–22). Boudy later implemented significant “reforestation” policies in colonial Morocco.

Within this colonial intellectual ferment and policy frenzy, the word désertification was coined by another French colonial forester in the same year, 1927, to describe what he assumed was deforestation at the edge of the Sahara and which encompassed most of the common dryland misconceptions (Lavauden, Reference Lavauden1927). The resulting imperial belief became a simplistic, linear desertification narrative which assumed that the “impoverished, destructive” indigenous people needed a firm (colonial) hand to learn to practice “proper” agriculture, curtail grazing, plant trees and generally “improve” their environment to reverse desertification (Benjaminsen and Hiernaux, Reference Benjaminsen and Hiernaux2019b; Davis, Reference Davis2016). This (largely false) desertification narrative has been used in similar ways to the present day for the gain of many (Thomas and Middleton, Reference Thomas and Middleton1994; Swift, Reference Swift, Leach and Mearns1996; Adams, Reference Adams2009; Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016).

These ideas encompassing desertification, and the many related dryland misconceptions, are deeply rooted in arborocentrism and have persisted since the colonial period for complex reasons (Swift, Reference Swift, Leach and Mearns1996; Adams, Reference Adams2009; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux, Reference Benjaminsen and Hiernaux2019b). One of the most influential reasons they endure is that, as crisis narratives, they are beneficial to various powerful entities, especially governments, when they want to implement new laws and policies or to control land and people or their livelihood activities (Roe, Reference Roe1991; Davis, Reference Davis, Richardson, Castree, Goodchild, Kobayashi, Liu and Marston2017).Footnote ⁵ It is nearly always the poorer segments of the population(s) who are the losers, as they become even more marginalized, often losing vital resources (Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux, Reference Benjaminsen and Hiernaux2019b). They also benefit powerful international organizations like the United Nations where ideas like desertification often remain unrevised for decades due to political expediency, institutional inertia and the slowness of adoption of new scientific ideas that accompany paradigm shifts in normal science (Kuhn, Reference Kuhn1970[1962]; Thomas and Middleton, Reference Thomas and Middleton1994; Scoones, Reference Scoones2016; Toulmin and Brock, Reference Toulmin, Brock, Behnke and Mortimore2016).

These faulty ideas persist as well because they have been written into many grade school and high school (and some college) textbooks, where the most recent drylands science has not yet been incorporated (Scoones, Reference Scoones2016). They permeate popular culture and the media in general where discredited equilibrium ideas of a “balance of nature” co-mingle with lay perceptions of succession and climax vegetation to engender over-valuing trees and undervaluing non-arboreal environments including deserts and drylands (Ladie and Gillson, Reference Ladie and Gillson2009; Hovardas and Korfiatis, Reference Hovardas and Korfiatis2011; Davis Reference Davis2016). Dryland environments, though, are rich environments, often quite productive and provide many environmental and social benefits to a large number of people.

Drylands and their variable but valuable environments

Approximately 38% of our global population lives in the drylands, about 2.5 billion people, primarily in underdeveloped nations, and drylands, the largest terrestrial biome, comprise at least 45% of our landmass (Hoover et al., Reference Hoover, Bestelmeyer, Grimm, Huxman, Reed, Sala, Seastedt, Wilmer and Ferrenberg2020; Lu et al., Reference Lu, Fu, Stafford-Smith, Maestre and Cheng2022; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Huntsinger, Sayre, Scogings, Stafford-Smith and Ulambayar2025; Eldridge and Sala, Reference Eldridge and Sala2025). The drylands take several ecological forms including deserts, grasslands, shrublands, savannahs, steppes, chaparral and tundras (Briske et al., Reference Briske, Huntsinger, Sayre, Scogings, Stafford-Smith and Ulambayar2025). A large majority of drylands function as rangelands and pastoralism, in various forms, is common. It is estimated that approximately 82%–88% of the drylands function as rangelands whereas about 12%–14% are under some form of plant agricultural production (Reynolds and Stafford Smith, Reference Reynolds, Stafford Smith, Reynolds and Stafford Smith2002; UNFAO, 2019).

Whereas rangelands are usually defined by use (grazing indigenous vegetation in a variety of biomes (Briske et al., Reference Briske, Cromsigt, Davies, Fernández-Giménez, Luizza, Manzano and Singh2026a) or as a residual category (Sayre, Reference Sayre, Carnell and Mounsey2023), drylands are most often defined as those areas where the Aridity Index (ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration) is 0.65 or less (UNFAO, 2019; Eldridge and Sala, Reference Eldridge and Sala2025). This means the drylands are also defined as the arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid zones normally receiving average annual precipitation of less than 200 mm (arid), between 200–500 mm (semi-arid) and 500–700 mm (dry subhumid) most of which is highly variable. Droughts are common (Nicholson, Reference Nicholson2011).

The dry conditions coupled with high interannual variability of precipitation create ecological conditions of nonequilibrium much of the time, especially in the arid and semi-arid zones (Behnke et al., Reference Behnke, Scoones and Kerven1993; Scoones, Reference Scoones1995; von Wehrden et al., Reference von Wehrden, Hanspach, Kaczensky, Fischer and Wesche2012; Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016; Sayre et al., Reference Sayre, Davis, Bestelmeyer and Williamson2017). Not all drylands have non-equilibrium conditions, but as was recognized nearly 40 years ago (Ellis and Swift, Reference Ellis and Swift1988; Westoby et al., Reference Westoby, Walker and Noy-Meir1989), in variable environments, linear succession to climax rarely holds and it is much more common that “a given site can develop into more than one ‘stable state’ depending on abiotic factors, such as rainfall and temperature,” among which “grazing, as a factor, … [has] often a relatively minor influence” (Huntsinger, Reference Huntsinger, Behnke and Mortimore2016, p. 310).

Many researchers have argued that overgrazing in highly variable, sometimes non-equilibrium environments, is difficult and uncommon under “natural conditions” of highly mobile, extensive grazing, which is grazing livestock over large expanses of land in the absence of fences, water points, supplemental feeding, etc. (Ellis and Swift, Reference Ellis and Swift1988; von Wehrden et al., Reference von Wehrden, Hanspach, Kaczensky, Fischer and Wesche2012; Krätli, Reference Krätli2015; Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016; Sayre, Reference Sayre, Carnell and Mounsey2023). Degradation in such environments can occur but is usually driven by other forces. This means that flexible, highly mobile, extensive pastoralism that is able to be opportunistic is one of the most well-adapted land uses for many of the drylands and should be better encouraged, facilitated and protected at multiple scales (Vetter, Reference Vetter2005; Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; ; Krätli, Reference Krätli2015; Davis, Reference Davis2016; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023). It is notable that in the more than 3/4 of drylands that are rangelands, a substantial amount of animal protein (meat and dairy) is produced on land that is largely inappropriate for plant agriculture, adding productive value.

The absence of thick groves of trees, therefore, is not frequently caused by overgrazing or “desertification,” and does not make the drylands deforested, worthless, empty or degraded. Paleoecological evidence has demonstrated that in many drylands, forests have not existed since the end of the last ice age, during the Holocene, if it all, and in others not for millions of years (Goudie, Reference Goudie1986; Fairhead and Leach, Reference Fairhead and Leach1998; Davis, Reference Davis2007; Roberts, Reference Roberts2014). Most of our great deserts, including the Sahara, the Gobi and the Namib, for instance, have been deserts for tens of millions of years, slowly shrinking or expanding with changing precipitation patterns (Goudie, Reference Goudie2002; Middleton, Reference Middleton2009). Likewise, the Grassy Biome evolved at least 60 million years ago (Briske et al., Reference Briske, Huntsinger, Sayre, Scogings, Stafford-Smith and Ulambayar2025). Recent research has demonstrated, furthermore, that deserts and drylands are some of the most resilient on the planet in the face of climate change (Seddon et al., Reference Seddon, Marcias-Fauria, Long, Benz and Willis2016; Sayre, Reference Sayre, Carnell and Mounsey2023; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Evans and Burrell2024). Some drylands, though, can be vulnerable to changes of state due to disturbance from which it can take a long time to recover (Hoover et al., Reference Hoover, Bestelmeyer, Grimm, Huxman, Reed, Sala, Seastedt, Wilmer and Ferrenberg2020).

In fact, various estimates are that only about 6%–15% of the drylands suffer some form of land degradation, compared with about 78% of more humid regions which are afflicted with land degradation (Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Krätli, Reference Krätli2015; Eldridge and Sala, Reference Eldridge and Sala2025). Recent research has demonstrated that many deserts and drylands are not as fragile as assumed and that former estimates of degradation and “desertification” in the drylands have been greatly exaggerated (Reynolds and Stafford Smith, Reference Reynolds, Stafford Smith, Reynolds and Stafford Smith2002; Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016; Seddon et al., Reference Seddon, Marcias-Fauria, Long, Benz and Willis2016). One of the biggest research challenges is “how to define degradation in a variable system” (Gillson and Hoffman, Reference Gillson and Hoffman2007, p. 54). In many parts of the drylands, it is “virtually impossible to separate the impact of drought [from] that of desertification [degradation]” (Nicholson, Reference Nicholson2011, p. 441). Although a lack of robust, long-term data is a perennial problem, the “regreening” of the Sahel is thought to be one example of the resilience of dryland environments (Sendzimir et al., Reference Sendzimir, Reij and Magnuszewski2011; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Cromsigt, Davies, Fernández-Giménez, Luizza, Manzano and Singh2026a) which appear to be recovering from “degradation” at a surprisingly rapid pace (Yan et al., Reference Yan, Guo, Sun, Gao, Qin, Li, Yue and Cui2024).

Each of these dryland ecosystems has distinct environmental characteristics and inherent value. Many of the drylands are rich in biodiversity even when that biodiversity may be underground much of the year as seeds or bulbs, or as creatures seeking the cool in burrows or under rocks (Laity, Reference Laity2008; Sayre, Reference Sayre, Carnell and Mounsey2023; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Cromsigt, Davies, Fernández-Giménez, Luizza, Manzano and Singh2026a). Although some drylands have relatively low species richness, others have surprisingly high phenotypic diversity, most especially in the more arid and grazed regions (Gross et al., Reference Gross, Maestre, Liancourt, Berdugo, Martin, Gozalo, Ochoa, Delgado-Baquerizo, Maire, Saiz, Soliveres, Valencia, Eldridge, Guirado, Jabot, Asensio, Gaitán, García-Gómez, Martínez, Martínez-Valderrama, Mendoza, Moreno-Jiménez, Pescador, Plaza, Pijuan, Abedi, Ahumada, Amghar, Arroyo, Bahalkeh, Bailey, Ben Salem, Blaum, Boldgiv, Bowker, Branquinho, van den Brink, Bu, Canessa, Castillo-Monroy, Castro, Castro, Chibani, Conceição, Darrouzet-Nardi, Davila, Deák, Donoso, Durán, Espinosa, Fajardo, Farzam, Ferrante, Franzese, Fraser, Gonzalez, Gusman-Montalvan, Hernández-Hernández, Hölzel, Huber-Sannwald, Jadan, Jeltsch, Jentsch, Ju, Kaseke, Kindermann, le Roux, Linstädter, Louw, Mabaso, Maggs-Kölling, Makhalanyane, Issa, Manzaneda, Marais, Margerie, Hughes, Messeder, Mora, Moreno, Munson, Nunes, Oliva, Oñatibia, Peter, Pueyo, Quiroga, Ramírez-Iglesias, Reed, Rey, Reyes Gómez, Rodríguez, Rolo, Rubalcaba, Ruppert, Sala, Salah, Sebei, Stavi, Stephens, Teixido, Thomas, Throop, Tielbörger, Travers, Undrakhbold, Val, Valkó, Velbert, Wamiti, Wang, Wang, Wardle, Wolff, Yahdjian, Yari, Zaady, Zeberio, Zhang, Zhou and le Bagousse-Pinguet2024), and some are considered biodiversity hotspots (Durant et al., Reference Durant, Pettorelli, Bashir, Woodrofe, Wacher, de Ornellas and Ransom2012; Vale et al., Reference Vale, Pimm and Brito2015).

Most life forms are well-adapted to heat, aridity and drought to varying degrees. Having co-evolved in dryland environments over long periods of time, many plants are adapted not only to aridity and drought but also to fire and grazing, especially in Mediterranean climate zones (Coughenour, Reference Coughenour1985; Trabaud, Reference Trabaud, Moreno and Oechel1994). There are many different micro-climates in the drylands which harbor a rich array of life that may be quite different from the surrounding area. Large sand dunes, for instance, accumulate and store water during rare rainfall that can be vital for nomads and their livestock, as well as for other creatures. Sometimes such dune water can even feed a small oasis (Goudie and Wilkinson, Reference Goudie and Wilkinson1977, p. 62).

It is little known that the drylands have important planet-wide influences on biogeochemical cycles and our global energy balance. The highly reflective surfaces of many drylands, the albedo, especially in the more arid zones, impacts our planetary radiation budget which, in turn, plays a key role in climate (Rutherford et al., Reference Rutherford, Painter, Ferrenberg, Belnap, Okin, Flagg and Reed2017). The strong winds that occur in many of the drylands in some cases generate substantial amounts of beneficial fertilizing dust that can be carried very long distances. It is estimated, for instance, that a single location in the Sahara desert provides roughly 40 million tons of dust which is transported across the Atlantic ocean to the Amazon Rain Forest and which constitutes the primary mineral source (phosphorus) for the basin’s fertilization (Koren et al., Reference Koren, Kaufman, Washington, Todd, Rudich, Martins and Rosenfeld2006; Shokri et al., Reference Shokri, Robinson, Afshar, Alewell, Aminzadeh, Arthur, Broothaerts, Campbell, Eklund, Gupta, Harper, Hassani, Hohenegger, Keller, Kiener, Lebron, Madani, Marwala, Matthews, Moldrup, Nemes, Panagos, Prăvălie, Rillig, Saggau, Shokri-Kuehni, Smith, Thomas, Wollesen de Jonge and Or2025). Dust storms, though, can also have negative impacts, especially on public health, but also on geochemical and hydrological cycles, and can sometimes spread toxic pollutants, salt and pathogens (Shokri et al., Reference Shokri, Robinson, Afshar, Alewell, Aminzadeh, Arthur, Broothaerts, Campbell, Eklund, Gupta, Harper, Hassani, Hohenegger, Keller, Kiener, Lebron, Madani, Marwala, Matthews, Moldrup, Nemes, Panagos, Prăvălie, Rillig, Saggau, Shokri-Kuehni, Smith, Thomas, Wollesen de Jonge and Or2025).

Other planetary impacts include mediating the exchange of gaseous forms of nitrogen between the atmosphere and the soil (Homyak et al., Reference Homyak, Blankinship, Marchus, Lucero, Sickman and Schimel2016). Drylands play a significant role in the global carbon cycle as well. They affect the variability of the global carbon sink year to year since changes in precipitation can strongly influence carbon soil sequestration and also loss (Poulter et al., Reference Poulter, Frank, Ciais, Myneni, Andela, Bi, Broquet, Canadell, Chevallier, Liu, Running, Sitch and van der Werf2014; Ahlstrom et al., Reference Ahlstrom, Raupach, Schurgers, Smith, Arneth and Jung2015; Ma et al., Reference Ma, Huete, Cleverly, Eamus, Chevallier, Joiner, Poulter, Zhang, Guanter, Meyer, Xie and Ponce-Campos2016; Moyano et al., Reference Moyano, Dimarco, Paritsis, Peterson, Peltzer, Crawford, McCary, Davis, Pauchard and Nunez2024). Furthermore, the grasses found in a great many of the drylands can sequester as much or more carbon than trees do at the same time that they are much more resilient to fire, releasing less carbon during wildfires since 90% or more of grassland carbon is underground (Dass et al., Reference Dass, Houlton, Wang and Warlind2018; Veldman et al., Reference Veldman, Aleman, Alvarado, Anderson and Archibald2019; Stevens and Bond, Reference Stevens and Bond2024). It is estimated that grasslands alone sequester 34% of global carbon (Sayre, Reference Sayre, Carnell and Mounsey2023; Moyano et al., Reference Moyano, Dimarco, Paritsis, Peterson, Peltzer, Crawford, McCary, Davis, Pauchard and Nunez2024).

Despite the advances in drylands science over the last 40–50 years and the abundance of “benefits” and “value” in the drylands enumerated above, public and some professional perceptions of drylands as deforested, desertified wastelands that need to be made valuable has facilitated misguided development projects and, more recently, a global mania for planting trees. Innumerable lives and ways of life have been disrupted in the process and the environment is being damaged in ways that are often complex and opaque.

Dryland misconceptions drive misguided development

Misguided development projects trying to “improve” drylands have been implemented for many decades, most based on these common misconceptions like desertification anchored in the colonial period. These have included the development of inappropriate irrigated agriculture, range “improvement” and the extension of agriculture into marginal land (Davis, Reference Davis2016, pp. 4–10; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023). Irrigation without adequate drainage causes water-logging and salinization, a long-standing problem that has doubled on dryland irrigation schemes over the last few decades (Goudie, Reference Goudie2000; Laity, Reference Laity2008; Middleton, Reference Middleton2009; Hogenboom, Reference Hogenboom2014; Hassani et al., Reference Hassani, Azapagic and Shokir2021). Range “improvement” projects have frequently tried to install western-style ranching systems with fencing, water wells, sedentarization of pastoralists and destocking to assumed carrying capacities which have failed widely and caused ecological as well as social problems (Goldschmidt, Reference Goldschmidt and Galaty1981; Rae, Reference Rae, Reynolds and Frame2005; Sayre et al., Reference Sayre, McAllister, Bestelmeyer, Moritz and Turner2013). The extension of crop agriculture into marginal, often range, lands below the 400 mm isohyet is a large cause of land degradation in the drylands and is increasingly recognized as a serious problem (Reynolds and Stafford Smith, Reference Reynolds, Stafford Smith, Reynolds and Stafford Smith2002; Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Calvo, Reference Calvo2024).

These long-standing misconceptions of the drylands as deforested wastelands continue to drive inappropriate development projects. Prominently illustrating the power of arborocentrism today is the massive and richly financed global afforestation campaign being waged in the name of ecological restoration and climate mitigation via carbon sequestration. This so-called “natural climate solution” is premised on the assumption that there is large scale anthropogenic deforestation and other forms of degradation that are best addressed with afforestation projects. These include small-scale projects and many large campaigns such as the United Nations’ Bonn Challenge, the Trillion Tree Campaign and “Great Green Walls” which are actively planting millions of hectares with billions of trees, most often in drylands around the globe (Turner et al., Reference Turner, Davis, Yeh, Hiernaux, Loizeaux, Fornof, Rice and Suiter2023; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Vetter, Coetsee and Turner2024). In the drylands, this arborocentric afforestation is usually coupled with desertification discourse in powerful ways that misunderstand dryland populations as much as their environments.

The science is now robust which demonstrates that this approach will not often achieve its goals but will actually damage the environment in many of the drylands while it marginalizes vulnerable populations (Fleischman et al., Reference Fleischman, Basant, Chhatre, Coleman, Fischer, Gupta, Güneralp, Kashwan, Khatri, Muscarella, Powers, Ramprasad, Rana, Solorzano and Veldman2020). Planting trees in drylands and grassy biomes often has numerous negative effects from increasing fire hazard (when plantation species like Pine and Eucalyptus are planted) to disrupting hydrology and decreasing water yield and soil moisture significantly, to lowering biodiversity, to disrupting nutrient cycles and decreasing agricultural yields from lowered water tables (Veldman et al., Reference Veldman, Overbeck, Negreiros, Mahy, le Stradic, Fernandes, Durigan, Buisson, Putz and Bond2015a; Temperton et al., Reference Temperton, Buchmann, Buisson, Durigan, Kazmierczak, Perring, de Sá Dechoum, Veldman and Overbeck2019; Veldman et al., Reference Veldman, Aleman, Alvarado, Anderson and Archibald2019; Holl and Brancalion, Reference Holl and Brancalion2020; Vetter, Reference Vetter2020; Moyano et al., Reference Moyano, Dimarco, Paritsis, Peterson, Peltzer, Crawford, McCary, Davis, Pauchard and Nunez2024; Stevens and Bond, Reference Stevens and Bond2024). One sign of how inappropriate afforestation usually is in the drylands is the fact that fewer than 50% of the planted trees normally survive, often fewer than 25% (Turner et al., Reference Turner, Davis, Yeh, Hiernaux, Loizeaux, Fornof, Rice and Suiter2023; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Vetter, Coetsee and Turner2024).

As these studies also demonstrate, afforestation in drylands that are naturally grassy biomes or other open ecosystems, does not usually sequester more carbon in the soil than is sequestered by grasslands and other native vegetation. Indeed, afforestation in some drylands actually decreases both soil moisture and soil carbon in the deeper layers of the soil, releasing carbon (Huang et al., Reference Huang, Gao, Ran, Wang and Fu2024). The authors of this study explain that “inappropriate afforestation [is] a potential time bomb for new carbon sources” (Huang et al., Reference Huang, Gao, Ran, Wang and Fu2024, p. 2). Wildfires also cause the release of much more carbon from tree plantations/forests than from grasslands as noted above. Afforestation, especially with conifers and other non-deciduous species like Eucalyptus, decreases albedo and leads to overall warming which can exacerbate climate change (Naudts et al., Reference Naudts, Chen, McGrath, Ryder, Valade, Otto and Luyssaert2016; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Vetter, Coetsee and Turner2024; Moyano et al., Reference Moyano, Dimarco, Paritsis, Peterson, Peltzer, Crawford, McCary, Davis, Pauchard and Nunez2024). Furthermore, the amount of land ecologically appropriate for afforestation as a “natural climate solution” is likely 71%–92% smaller than was estimated by the early studies which encouraged many of the large planting campaigns (Fesenmeyer et al., Reference Fesenmeyer, Poor, Terasaki Hart, Veldman, Fleischman, Choksi, Archibald and Armani2025). Given these ecological realities, a more successful approach would be to protect the drylands (grassy biome), restore where necessary and only reforest in places where deforestation is adequately documented.

Ecologist Joseph Veldman has described the mass afforestation approach as the “tyranny of trees” and cautions that the results of afforestation in grassy biomes can be catastrophic (Veldman et al., Reference Veldman, Overbeck, Nrgeiros and Mahy2015b; Silveira et al., Reference Silveira, Ordonez-Parra, Moura, Schmidt, Anderson, Bond, Buisson, Durigan, Fidelis, Oliveira and Overbeck2021). Other researchers have pointed out that at least half of the afforestation being implemented or promised in the name of ecosystem restoration and climate mitigation is plantation forestry with commercial species that will be harvested for profit before the trees can sequester substantial carbon. Ecologist Susanne Vetter notes that this amounts to “plantation forestry masquerading as ecosystem restoration” (Vetter, Reference Vetter2020, p. 5). The economic incentives, such as timber and wood pulp sales, driving a large portion of the “tyranny of trees” is not often discussed in the scientific literature but it is a crucial part of what is driving large-scale inappropriate afforestation.

Another political-economic incentive is forest “carbon offsets” which constitute a complicated multi-billion dollar market around the globe (Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2023). It has recently been revealed, though, that the estimates of deforestation to be remediated by afforestation in these schemes have been greatly exaggerated, by 400–900% in some cases (West et al., Reference West, Borner, Sills and Kontoleon2020; Guizar-Coutino et al., Reference Guizar-Coutino, Jones and Balmford2022; West et al., Reference West, Wunder, Sills, Börner, Rifai, Neidermeier, Frey and Kontoleon2023). These carbon offsets are sold to companies which use them to enhance their marketing as “eco-companies” to sell more goods and services. Given the massively inflated deforestation estimates, though, it appears that up to 90% of the rainforest carbon offsets of at least one company, Verra, may be worthless, little more than false advertising or “green washing” (Christiansen, Reference Christiansen2025; Davis, Reference Davis, Simon and Kay2025, p. 99). Verra is not an isolated case. In fact, a host of fraudulent activities have grown up around carbon credit markets to the degree that it is an emerging area of white collar crime being monitored by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (Happel, Reference Happel2025).

Scholars describe this sort of large-scale afforestation as a “green grab” since land is often appropriated from local peoples in the name of environmental protection (Fairhead et al., Reference Fairhead, Leach and Scoones2012; Happel, Reference Happel2025). This is a subset of other kinds of land grabs documented in the literature and often include land appropriated for industrial agriculture (Borras et al., Reference Borras, Hall, White and Wolford2011). This sort of land appropriation has been on-going since the colonial period for a wide variety of development projects. Most well-documented land degradation in the drylands has, in fact, come from these inappropriate “development” projects over the last century and not from the land management activities such as pastoralism or small holder farming by the local populations on the ground (Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009).

Struggling or thriving? Local knowledges and sustainable development in drylands

Most of these misguided development projects, from afforestation projects to the encroachment of agriculture onto marginal lands make the lives of local and indigenous populations in the rural drylands, especially pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, much more difficult (Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023). Migratory routes are disrupted, land and resources are lost to privatization and development of various kinds and traditional activities such as grazing livestock and gathering medicinal plants or firewood are often restricted or criminalized. People are often left struggling to survive.

And yet, it is frequently the case that in the drylands it is precisely the myriad indigenous and local knowledges, derived from long periods of time living in these environments, that have much to teach us about living sustainably in these stochastic environments, especially since variability is projected to increase with climate change (Sloat et al., Reference Sloat, Gerber, Samberg, Smith, Herrero, Ferreira, Godde and West2018; Gherardi and Sala, Reference Gherardi and Sala2019). In other words, many pastoralists and other dryland populations understand and are able to thrive on the benefits of drylands and only rarely degrade their environments, usually when no other option is available.

While not perfect or infallible, the knowledges and practices that local people have accumulated over hundreds of years of collective experience have allowed them to survive and thrive.Footnote ⁶ This is especially true when they are less constrained by political-administrative obstacles and are able to practice flexible, adaptive management, responding not only to environmental variability but also to political-economic variability and market fluctuations (Gillin and Turner, Reference Gillin and Turner2022; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023; Kratli et al., Reference Kratli, Ancey, Dabire and Blanfort2026).

The drylands of North Africa, for instance, which the French colonial administration assumed to be the result of centuries of deforestation and overgrazing have been shown to have had very limited forest degradation over the centuries and the rangelands have been managed sustainably, for the most part, by the traditional knowledge and management of the local pastoralists until the neoliberal period (Davis, Reference Davis2007). Such groups maintain rules-in-use to guide the community’s utilization of resources and normally prevent any kind of a “tragedy of the commons” (Locher, Reference Locher2018). Palaeoecological data, historical research, field studies and ethnographic research have been crucial in providing these multiple new perspectives on drylands.

Many other examples abound: the Agdal pasture reserve system in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains (Dominguez et al., Reference Dominguez, Bourbouze, Demay, Genin and Kosoy2012), the Hima grazing system in the Arabian Peninsula and Syria (Chatty, Reference Chatty and Chatty2006; Gari, Reference Gari2006; Eldridge et al., Reference Eldridge, Davies, Squires and Maestre2026) and various rangelands managed communally in Mongolia (Allington et al., Reference Allington, Fernández-Giménez, Reid, Ulambayar, Angerer, Jamsranjav, Baival and Batjav2024), Spain (Fernández-Giménez and Fillat Estaque, Reference Fernández-Giménez and Fillat Estaque2012) and many other parts of the drylands (Krätli, Reference Krätli2015; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023). Dryland agricultural knowledge accumulated over long experience is equally valuable, as is evident in the terraced hills of densely populated Machakos, Kenya (Tiffen et al., Reference Tiffen, Mortimore and Gichuki1994), the skilled oasis agriculture in Morocco, the Sahara and similar environments (Lightfoot et al., Reference Lightfoot, Finchum, Vadjunec, Andrews and Odenwald2023; Tydecks et al., Reference Tydecks, Hernandez-Aguero, Bohning-Gaese, Bremerich, Jeschke, Schutt, Zarfl and Tockner2023).

Research is further demonstrating that variable dryland environments are often best managed with expansive mobility of people and livestock as well as more local-level governance (Roe et al., Reference Roe, Huntsinger and Labnow1998; Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Krätli, Reference Krätli2015; Roe, Reference Roe2020; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Cromsigt, Davies, Fernández-Giménez, Luizza, Manzano and Singh2026a). Despite the received, arborocentric and sedentist wisdom, restricting this mobility often causes degradation rather than preventing it. A recent study explains that “scientific research has long demonstrated that through highly skilled herding, pastoralists maximize production by exploiting the variability of environments where other forms of food production are unfeasible” (Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023, p. 54). Pastoralists and other rural dryland peoples often provide the very “opportunistic management” long called for by dryland ecologists (Westoby et al., Reference Westoby, Walker and Noy-Meir1989).

Allowing more self-governance and implementing less centralized government control also helps in many cases. For example, support for pastoralist lifeways that encouraged mobility rather than sedentarization in Chad, begun in 1993, has resulted in some successes in improving pastoralist livelihoods (Krätli et al., Reference Krätli, Monimart, Jallo, Swift and Hesse2014). In Niger, local management of trees by farmers, in conjunction with inter-cropping, has resulted in some “regreening” in this part of the Sahel that was aided not only by increased rainfall but the weakening of the state and thus the near collapse of the forest service allowing the farmers to practice what they knew best (Tougiani et al., Reference Tougiani, Guero and Rinaudo2008; Sendzimir et al., Reference Sendzimir, Reij and Magnuszewski2011). In Syria, the state implemented efforts at sedentarization and the encouragement of the expansion of agriculture and ranching-style livestock production into the marginal steppe environment in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite this, some herders “stealthily” continued the indigenous Hima grazing tradition in this eastern steppe region which resulted in measurably less land degradation in the areas under their traditional management (Debaine and Jaubert, Reference Debaine and Jaubert2002; Chatty, Reference Chatty and Chatty2006; Davis, Reference Davis2016, pp. 171–172).

Despite these and many other examples demonstrating the value of drylands and their adept management by local peoples, nation states and international agencies too often continue to prioritize arborocentric, sedentist development projects and administration for the reasons of power, profit, control and/or inertia explained above. Such approaches usually further marginalize local populations by not only making their traditional lifeways harder but also by under-investing in these rural dryland regions. This is part of why poverty rates and insecurity (both nutritional and physical) are higher in dryland regions, sometimes pushing younger generations towards urban areas and/or more political activities (Benjaminsen and Ba, Reference Benjaminsen and Ba2019a; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023).

A new story needs to be told about the value of our highly variable drylands and their skilled inhabitants in order to change this negative trajectory. We need to develop a new “social contract,” as called for recently, and a new narrative for the drylands that will be more socially just and ecologically sustainable (Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023). Such a contract would be slightly different in different parts of the drylands, and for different populations, but some commonalities can be suggested that all incorporate flexibility and adaptive management as a crucial foundation. Many of these ideas have been discussed and advocated for years, especially in the rangeland/pastoralism community of scholars (Behnke et al., Reference Behnke, Scoones and Kerven1993; Scoones, Reference Scoones1995; Niamir-Fuller, Reference Niamir-Fuller1999; Fernández-Giménez, Reference Fernández-Giménez2000; Reynolds and Stafford Smith, Reference Reynolds, Stafford Smith, Reynolds and Stafford Smith2002; Chatty, Reference Chatty and Chatty2006; Mortimore, Reference Mortimore2009; Niamir-Fuller et al., Reference Niamir-Fuller, Kerven, Reid and Milner-Gulland2012; Krätli, Reference Krätli2015; Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016; Calvo, Reference Calvo2024; Eldridge et al., Reference Eldridge, Davies, Squires and Maestre2026; Briske et al., Reference Briske, Cromsigt, Davies, Fernández-Giménez, Luizza, Manzano and Singh2026a).

In order to maximize the potential benefits of drylands, the local peoples need help in the form of providing more local-level governance, being included as skilled, equal participants and partners in decision-making and being allowed to work flexibly with natural variabilities in the environment as well as in adapting to political-economic and market changes. To do this, frameworks to legally protect resource use (including access to water), mobility and tenure regimes (from common property to private property) need to be developed and enforced. Further beneficial changes would include protecting drylands from inappropriate encroachment (e.g. from industrial agriculture, afforestation projects or alternative energy projects), while providing social and economic support in the form of educational and economic/financial opportunities.

The most important starting point for constructing a more successful approach for the drylands, however, is transforming our prevailing colonial perception of drylands as desertified wastelands to a different view of drylands as valuable environments with rich resources for many local peoples with the knowledge and skill to steward them. The words we choose to use and the narratives we construct are much more important than we often realize.

Deserting desertification

2026 is the United Nations’ first International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP). The goals of the IYRP include transforming “misguided myths portraying rangelands as having marginal value and pastoralism as backward and inefficient” (Briske et al., Reference Briske, Niamir-Fuller, Davies, Waters-Bayer, Hutchinson and Samuels2026b, p. 1). We also need to transform the misguided myths (misconceptions) that too often portray drylands as desertified wastelands (Thomas and Middleton, Reference Thomas and Middleton1994; Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016). And yet, June 2027 will mark 100 years since the word “desertification” was first used, in French (désertification). It originally appeared in a publication on the ecology of dryland trees in southern Tunisia in which the French colonial forester, Louis Lavauden, lamented what he perceived as deforestation and overgrazing and it has been widely used since. As detailed above, long before Lavauden used this term, erroneous beliefs and misunderstandings about drylands had become ingrained, a kind of received wisdom, in most Anglo-European countries.

It is not surprising, then, that Lavauden defined his term “desertification” as the creation of desert-like conditions “… caused uniquely by human action” and added that desertification could still be “… combated and stopped by strong human means [action]” (Lavauden, Reference Lavauden1927, p. 267). This moralistic and pejorative word, “desertification,” was subsequently used in both French and English to blame local peoples for ruining their environment and to justify directly expropriating, or taking control of, large amounts of land and resources in the drylands in the name of reversing desertification. This single, very powerful, word and idea, “desertification,” embodies nearly all of our arborocentric “misconceptions,” our misguided myths, about deserts and drylands. I have written elsewhere that “it is the idea of desertification, rather than the processes of land degradation in arid regions, that has been more influential over the last two centuries” (Davis, Reference Davis, Richardson, Castree, Goodchild, Kobayashi, Liu and Marston2017, p. 1).

The term desertification and its constellation of erroneous assumptions spread quickly and widely among colonial administrators and in their home countries. It directly informed the United Nations’ definitions of desertification as early as the 1950s in the work of UNESCO, and later in both the UN Environment Program, (UNEP) and the 1977 UN Conference on Desertification (UNCOD) (Davis, Reference Davis2016). The definition of desertification agreed at UNCOD was “the diminution or destruction of the biological potential of land [which] can lead to desert-like conditions” (Nicholson, Reference Nicholson2011, p. 435). Echoing Lavauden, UNCOD clarified shortly thereafter that “the main cause of desertification is the interaction between man [sic] and a fragile environment in dryland ecosystems; man is the initiator … land use practices … are the immediate causes of desertification” (UNEP, 1978, p. 1).

It took nearly 20 years before the UN changed this definition in 1994 at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). At this conference, desertification was defined as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climate variations and human activities” (Toulmin and Brock, Reference Toulmin, Brock, Behnke and Mortimore2016, p. 44). Although climate was added to this 1994 definition, drylands ecology had substantially progressed and by this time “policy was seriously disconnected from science” reflecting the underlying politics of knowledge (Andersson et al., Reference Andersson, Brogaard and Olsson2011, p. 306). Indeed, by this time there were at least 100 different definitions of desertification, including that of UNCCD, with no agreement on how to monitor desertification or measure its extent (Middleton, Reference Middleton2009; Nicholson, Reference Nicholson2011). The colonially derived definitions of desertification adopted by the UN between the 1950s and the 1990s had a great deal of power. They institutionalized, and spread to most nations, some of the most common and impactful arborocentric “misconceptions” of deserts and drylands as desertified that are still so influential today (Davis Reference Davis2016; Nori and Scoones, Reference Nori and Scoones2023, p. 58).

Some positive changes seem to be starting to take place at high levels like the UN as is evident in the 2024 UNCCD report on rangelands and pastoralists that valorizes drylands and local knowledges. This report and a few other recent UN reports have begun to add “land degradation” after using the term desertification more and more often (UNFAO, 2019; Calvo, Reference Calvo2024). This is a hopeful change. However, the UNCCD’s recently held COP16 proclaimed “desertification and land degradation” a crisis and called on the private sector to invest in the emerging asset class of “environmental credit markets,” specifically carbon and biodiversity offset credits (Burlace and Warrik, Reference Burlace and Warrik2024). This sort of neoliberal land grabbing, like mass afforestation, has been criticized widely as a problematic kind of “neo-colonialism” (Bumpus and Liverman, Reference Bumpus, Liverman, Peet, Robbins and Watts2011) and is too often framed in terms of alleged desertification.

Desertification is a deeply colonial term encompassing most of the common arborocentric misconceptions of drylands, including wrongly blaming local peoples for assumed degradation. I join numerous other scholars who strongly suggest that we desert desertification and use other, more accurate terms to describe the limited but complex forms of degradation that occur in the world’s rich and variable drylands (Behnke and Mortimore, Reference Behnke and Mortimore2016; Scoones, Reference Scoones2016; Prince and Podwojewski, Reference Prince and Podwojewski2019; Benjaminsen and Hiernaux, Reference Benjaminsen and Hiernaux2019b; Hoover et al., Reference Hoover, Bestelmeyer, Grimm, Huxman, Reed, Sala, Seastedt, Wilmer and Ferrenberg2020; Reynolds, Reference Reynolds2021). Simply using the term “dryland degradation” in place of desertification would be a useful way to start engaging in a more productive way with the complex socio-natural problems in our planet’s complex drylands. Another would be to request that the United Nations change the name of the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to the Convention to Combat Dryland Degradation (UNCCDD). Abandoning the moralistic and pejorative term desertification would facilitate a better understanding and appreciation of, as well as more successful, equitable and sustainable policies for, the drylands and their people. It will allow us to see the drylands as the plentiful and valuable environments they are rather than the imagined forests they are not.