{"id":8485,"date":"2017-06-14T09:14:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T01:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seangallagher.wpengine.com\/?p=8485"},"modified":"2017-06-14T09:14:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T01:14:00","slug":"beijing-photographer-world-day-to-combat-desertification-and-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallagher-photo.com\/beijing-photographer-world-day-to-combat-desertification-and-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

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17th June marks the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. This is a topic I have spent much time covering during my career, most notably in my two projects ‘Desertification in China<\/a>‘ and ‘The Broken Land: Drought in India” which was a short film<\/a> and photo-essay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As outlined by the UN<\/a>‘s website: “Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. It is caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations. Desertification does not refer to the expansion of existing deserts. It occurs because dryland ecosystems, which cover over one third of the world\u2018s land area, are extremely vulnerable to overexploitation and inappropriate land use. Poverty, political instability, deforestation, overgrazing and bad irrigation practices can all undermine the productivity of the land.” It continues, “Over 250 million people are directly affected by desertification, and about one billion people in over one hundred countries are at risk. These people include many of the world\u2018s poorest, most marginalized and politically weak citizens.”<\/p>\n