This chapter is about the impact of human beings in the desert. We will start by looking at the ways in which we have the potential to harm the deserts of the world, by living in them, by mining their resources, by using vehicles in the deserts and by farming. But human impact also has its harmonious side, and so we will also look at how people can enjoy and live in the desert without harming it.
There is always a balance between good and bad. This huge array of windmills lies in the San Gorgonio Pass between two 11,000 feet mountains. Hot desert air rises, causing a pocket which pulls in cooler air ╨ as it squeezes through the pass, the wind speed reaches up to 20 miles per hour.
The windmills generate enough electricity to power the City of Palm Springs. But are the windmills a superb source of alternative energy or are they a real desert eyesore? What do YOU think?
Population growth
The hotels and golf courses of Palm Springs and other resorts in southern California have sprung up from arid desert lands. Many people prize the living conditions which the desert offers, and are willing to accept summer air conditioning as a necessary fact of life in order to guarantee year-round sun and healthful dry air.
But every new home, school or office has the potential to destroy desert wildlife. Clearly, we cannot and should not prevent people from moving to the desert, but co-ordinated planning must protect our precious desert resource for the enjoyment of future generations.
Motor sports
Many thousands of motor sports enthusiasts in the American southwest view the desert as a recreation area where they can race their dune buggies and motorcycles. This has created problems of management and policing ╨ areas have to be set aside for motor sport and although most drivers and riders are responsible, they have to be told where they can and cannot go.
The Algodones dunes near the Mexican border are extensively used by dune buggies, and areas of the Mohave desert inland from Los Angeles are designated for the use of motorcycles and other offroad vehicles.
Agriculture
Agriculture needs water, and although some desert areas like the Nile Valley in Egypt have been well irrigated for thousands of years, it is only more recently that water has been brought to vast expanses of desert land. The Imperial Valley at the head of the Salton Sea in southern California used to be part of the Sonoran Desert. Now it is home to huge fields of lettuce and other crops.
Resources
The Mesquite gold mine is located in the shadow of the Chocolate Mountains, southern California, on land owned partly by the Bureau of Land Management and partly by the Sante Fe Pacific Gold corporation. Although gold mining has been carried out in California for 300 years, the Mesquite mine is a modern development dating back only to 1985.
This huge mine produces around 214,000 ounces of gold each year, and is an example of the balance between resource production and environmental protection. This is no mean task, because around 40 tons of ore rock have to be processed to produce one ounce of gold.
The lowly desert tortoise is an example of how environmental protection works at the mine. All employees have to undergo a formal Tortoise Protection Program, teaching them what to do if tortoises are encountered, and special fencing and signs warn visitors and employees of special tortoise areas.
The dome shown in this picture prevents the finely ground dust from contaminating the air around the mine.
Borax is less glamorous than gold, but more than $30 million worth of borax was produced in Death Valley from 1883 to 1927.
Compounds in the salt water beneath the playas of Death Valley sometimes recrystallize onto the surface as ╘cottonball borax╒. The borax was raked into piles by Chinese laborers and was brought to the Harmony Borax works to be purified. From there, the borax was taken to the train station in Mojave by twenty mule team wagons ╨ a distance of 165 miles.
Endangered desert life
Many desert species of animals and plants are endangered, including the desert tortoise ╨ an animal with the distinction of being California╒s state reptile. Strong programs have been set up to protect the tortoise in the Californian deserts.
Other endangered desert species include the Arabian oryx. Reduced to extinction in the wild, captive bred animals have now been successfully released back into their native habitat. The scimitar horned oryx is also endangered. This animal lives on the semi-desert fringes of the Sahara, and once inhabited a wide area from West Africa to the Red Sea.
The Arabian oryx and this Grevy╒s zebra are both animals protected by Species Survival Plans, a scheme developed by the American Association of Zoological Parks to help improve the odds against extinction.
Mhorr╒s gazelle, the slender horned gazelle and Cuvier╒s gazelle are all endangered gazelle species of the North African deserts. Only about 100 Mhorr╒s gazelle are known to be in captivity, and this species may be extinct in the wild.
The numbers of slender horned gazelle have been drastically reduced in the wild due to hunting and habitat destruction, but as this gazelle lives in such remote desert regions, the number in the wild is not known. These slender horned gazelle are lucky to be alive as they are descended from a herd of only 3 animals.
Cuvier╒s gazelle come from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. They live in groups of 4-5 animals in mountainous desert areas.
Other endangered desert animals include Przewalskis horse, which used to live in the semi-desert areas of Mongolia. More than 100 zoos across the world now have populations of these horses.
Who lives in the deserts?
We have already seen the impact that modern civilization is having on the world╒s deserts, but people have been living in the desert for thousands of years without any apparent ill effect on the environment.
The main reason for this is that traditional ways of life are not technology-driven. A simple farmer with his plowshare or a hunter-gatherer with bow and arrows are not going to impact the desert in the same way as a modern-day farmer with a hundred thousand dollars of farming equipment.
The peoples of the world╒s deserts are diverse, but they have all learned to cope with their harsh surroundings. They all have common needs ╨ for shelter, for food and water, and for a system of beliefs ranging from complex Islamic tradition and Buddhism, to the simpler beliefs of Australian and African aborigines.
San of the Kalahari
The San people of the Kalahari are hunter-gatherers who use light bows with poison tipped arrows to kill antelope and other mammals. These tribesmen are putting poison on the ends of their arrows.
The San hunt antelope and lay traps for them in the bush. Once they have killed an animal, they remove its skin and prepare the meat.
These people make huts with a framework of twigs, over whcih they stretch antelope skins. They often store water in ostrich shells ╨ this San tribesman is blowing the shell so that it can be used as a water vessel.
Like other primitive people without easy access to matches or lighters, the San start fires by rubbing sticks together.
Dogons of Mali
The Dogon people live in Mali, a country in the interior of Africa. The northern half of Mali is Sahara desert, while the southern part is less arid, watered by the river Niger and its tributaries.
This Dogon village is on the fringe of the Sahara. The Dogon people grow cereal crops, and these square huts with conical straw roofs are probably for storage of the harvested crops.
The most impressive granaries constructed by the Dogon can however be seen built into steep hillsides. Although these structures look like a city hewn out of rock, they are probably only used for storing grain.
Ghosts in the Desert
These abandoned buildings show the other face of gold from the desert. They are in the town of Rhyolite, Nevada close to Death Valley. Gold was found in Rhyolite in August 1904 and by 1912 it had grown from nothing to a town of 10,000 people. As the gold ran out, the people left, and by 1919 everyone had gone.
