Although deserts are barren and inhospital places, their beauty and grandure are indisputable. However, many people look upon deserts as places to be developed and changed. Extraction of oil and minerals, grazing by livestock, off-road use of vehicles, and the development of towns and cities are some of the factors destroying desert areas.
This chapters describes some of the ways in which the life that inhabits the world╒s deserts is being disrupted and in some cases destroyed.
Population growth
Millions of desert acres are now covered with homes, factories, shopping centers, roads and farmland. The population of the southwestern US is growing rapidly ╨ the availability of water and power means that our technological society can tame the desert with modern amenities like air conditioning, swimming pools and shaded shopping malls.
But these amenities come at a price. The water in the American deserts comes from the Colorado River and other rivers that flow through the southwest, as well as from underground sources. In Arizona, most water is in fact pumped from underground supplies. No one knows how extensive such reserves are. Once gone, they may not be replenished for centuries. Each year the water levels drop lower and wells must be drilled deeper. Some farmland in Arizona has already been abandoned for lack of water.
The American deserts are undergoing a saddening change. Plantlife is dwindling in some areas ╨ the saguaro is reducing in number because of new housing and disease. Plant seedlings are eaten by rodents, which are increasing in number, because man has killed many of the coyotes which formerly preyed on them. Deserts are also affected by human impact that may originate far beyond the desert itself. Polluted air from Los Angeles may be killing desert holly plants in Death Valley.
Motor sports
It is estimated that there are some 200,000 dune buggies and a million motocycles designed for off-road use in California. Many vehicle owners regard the Mohave desert as their backyard, and this attitude is fostered by the land╒s ownership ╨most desert is public land, belonging to all US citizens. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees and protects the US deserts.
Many thousands of motorcycle riders use the southwestern deserts of the USA for recreation. In 1973 about 700 cyclists raced illegally through a part of the Mohave Desert set aside as a reserve for the rare desert tortoise. According to desert biologists, plant and animal life in this area will not recover for many years.
Agriculture
Desert soil is rich and fertile when supplied with water. Irrigation of water-hungry crops means that date palms and cotton fields now grow where cacti and wildflowers once flourished. Alongside the positive benefits of desert farming are the negative effects ╨ intensive farming can cause desertification. Pressure to grow more and more food on the same land encourages farmers to overwork the soil with sometimes disastrous consequences. In 1930 intensive farming and grazing in America's southern states created a huge area of bare and desertlike land called the Dust Bowl. Droughts had dried up the soil and winds then carried it away. Cities hundreds of mile away were plunged into darkness as huge clouds of dust blew across the sky.
Crops can harm the desert and so can livestock, through the process of overgrazing. One of worst overgrazed areas in the US is the Navajo Reservation of northern Arizona and New Mexico. In this area, overgrazing by rapidly expanding sheep herds has -pr wasteland. Other seriously overgrazed areas in the western US include parts of eastern New Mexico, Colorado, southern Arizona and northwest Texas. Desert grassland, often capable of feeding only 1 cow per 60 acres, is being overgrazed; erosion is resulting and mesquite and prickly pear cactus making inroads upon grasslands.
Resources
For centuries, the deserts remained the exclusive property of small desert tribes who managed to survive in hostile conditions. But recently the arrival of cars, trucks and airplanes has made the exploration of deserts far easier. Even satellites can be used to spy out new areas to look for resources. Mining companies extract rich mineral reserves such as copper, iron, salt and uranium, often with little regard for maintaining the desert ecosystems. Oil also found in some deserts and has brought great wealth to certain states, particularly in the Middle East.
Endangered desert life
Some two dozen cactus species that grow in the southwestern US are known to be endangered. Among them is a small hedgehog cactus, commonly called the black lace cactus that lives in a single location in Texas. There are two main threats to the survival of this cactus ╨ one is the development of land, and the other is collection by commercial collectors and by people who want to have the cacti in their own homes or gardens.
Another endangered plant is the Knowlton cactus. No larger than a quarter, its pink flowers are twice that size. This cactus is found only in northern New Mexico and parts of Colorado, and most of its habitat was flooded by the San Juan Dam. Commercial collection has been another serious problem. Only by saving habitats with their complex diversity of species can we ensure that all species have chance to survive, and only by preserving precious habitats can we hope to ensure that one extinction does not lead to a whole chain of extinctions.
The Arabian oryx is an example of an endangered animal species with a happy ending. This animal has been extensively hunted by the Arabian people, and by the 1960s, only a few Arabian oryx remained ╨ in the southeastern Arabian state of Oman. Captive breeding programs produced enough oryx to reintroduce back in to the wild, and this was done by the king of Oman in the 1980s. The animals were released under the protection and surveillance of a Bedouin tribe called the Harasis. By 1986 ...
Protecting the deserts
It is a common misconception that deserts cannot be destroyed. A tropical rainforest can be chopped down and destroyed, marshland habitats can be drained and destroyed. But a desert? Surely deserts are just sand and rock.
This is a totally false viewpoint. The ecology of the world╒s deserts is in a delicate balance, and humankind can easily destroy the beauty and harmony of these regions. Nowhere is this more true than in the American southwest, where pollution, building, agriculture, sport and mineral exploitation are threatening the deserts in a number of different ways.
The California Desert Protection Act (CDPA) was passed by Congress in October 1994. This Act designates certain federal lands in the California desert as wilderness, to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service or the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
One of the basic ideas behind the CVDA is that wilderness areas should be kept as places where ╘man is a visitor who does not remain╒. Each person should make sure that he or she removes all evidence of their visit, so that the next visitor does not lose the sense of solitude and undisturbed opportunities for recreation that wilderness areas should allow.
The CDPA prohibits bicycles, hang gliders, motor vehicles, boats and airplanes from much of the federal land, together with limitations on hunting and fishing. It also disallows the collection of firewood, rocks and minerals and vegetation throughout the areas.
Who lives in the desert?
Desert animals have become adapted in a number of different ways to cope with the heat and dryness of desert regions, but human desert dwellers have little if any physiological adaptations to living in these inhospitable areas.
If we look at the peoples of the desert we can see that the adaptations they have made owe more to human ingenuity than to body function. Desert dwellers have learned to cultivate crops that can survive in desert conditions, to find water sources, to dress in ways that prevent water loss, and to make temporary or permanent shelters that give protection from the heat. In many desert regions these shelters also have to protect against the cold of night and winter.
A study of desert peoples provides a fascinating insight into the way that similar problems have been overcome in different continents. Some desert peoples have a way of life that has changed little since the Stone Age, while others drive Jeeps and Chevrolet trucks. This chapter describes some of the peoples that live in the world╒s deserts.
Native Americans
A number of different tribes and bands of native Americans live in the deserts of the American southwest, including more than 200,000 in Arizona alone. These deserts have probably been occupied for the past 12,000 years and the traces of the oldest inhabitants can be seen in the form of rock writing called petroglyphs as well as in cliff and surface dwellings.
Unlike the native peoples of other desert regions, the native Americans have in many ways adapted to the conveniences of modern-day society. There are few people left who live in the same conditions as their great-grandfathers a hundred years ago. The original native Americans of the desert were a hardy group, using a number of desert plants and animals for their daily needs. Some, such as the Papagos Indians made use of water that gathered in washes by planting corn, squash and beans. This flash-flood farming, as it is called, is still practiced on the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona.
American desert dwellers usually live in one place ╨ they are not nomadic, like many of the desert peoples in other regions of the world. Native Americans built villages (called pueblos) out of mud, wood and stone.
Tuaregs of North Africa
The Tuareg (sing. Targui), are desert people of North Africa. Their ancestors came from the Middle East between 7th and11th centuries. Unlike Native Americans, Tuareg are nomadic tribes ╨ they need to constantly move across the great Sahara desert as their sheep and camels graze and exhaust the sparse vegetation in each area they visit. Like other peoples of the African and Near East deserts, Tuareg tribesmen wear loose fitting sleeveless tunics and a distinctive head cloth. The loose fitting tunic allows air to circulate around the body, as well as preventing sweat evaporating quickly ╨ this helps the body to avoid dehydration. The Tuareg believe that it is shameful for the mouths of the men to be uncovered, so all males wear veils over the lower parts of their faces. Tuareg women do not wear veils.
The Tuareg live in large tents made of goat hair. Their society is matrilineal and feudal, with a class of non-Tuareg serfs. The Tuareg are Islamic by religion.
Bedouins of the Middle East
Like the Tuareg, Bedouins are nomadic tribesmen, and bedouins live in the Middle Eastern deserts across to Egypt. Bedouins also live in the vast emptiness of the Arabian Desert - the Ar-Rab al Khali, or the Empty Quarter, which provides little to support human populations. These pastoral nomads herd camels, sheep and horses keeping them by oases during the dry summer months and migrating to follow the sparse growth of vegetation when the rains come in fall and winter. Camels are used as beasts of burden ╨ they can carry up to 600 pounds. Goats and sheep provide their Bedouin owners with milk, meat and wool. Bedouin tents, like those of the Tuareg are often made with woven goat's hair. Modern Bedouins use lightweight plastics instead of the old wood and metal buckets.
At night the Bedouin sleep under the goat-hair tents and cover the desert floor with soft rugs. They dress from head to toe in loose-fitting robes ╨ the robes protect the wearer from flying sand and grit and also protects the Bedouin from water loss.
San of the Kalahari
The bushmen of the Kalahari (called San) are hunter-gatherers, and they
survive by hunting wild game with bows and arrows and gathering edible plants like berries, melons and nuts as well as insects. Bushmen rarely drink ╨ they get most of water requirements from plant roots and desert melons found on or under desert floor: they often store water in the blown-out shells of ostrich eggs.
The San have their own characteristic language that includes clicking sounds. These bushmen live in huts built from local materials - the frame is made of branches and the roof is thatched with long grass.
It is thought that as few as 2000 San still live in the traditional way, due to the encroachment of modern-day activities ╨ cattle ranching expanded rapidly in the Kalahari in the 1970s, and diamonds, copper, cobalt, coal and nickel are also mined in this desert.
Peoples of the Gobi
The Gobi desert stretches some 500 miles from north to south and 1,000 miles from east to west in the center of Asia. It lies in Mongolia and China. is home to the Khalkha Mongols, who make up around 80% of the population of Mongolia. The Khalkha Mongols are semi-nomadic, using herds of two-humped Bactrian camels to move between campsites as many as 10 times each year The Mongols keep sheep and goats for meat and wool.
These nomadic herdsmen live in sturdy, round tents called gers. (Sometimes mistakenly called yurts). The tents are constructed from a wooden framework covered with layers of woven fabric and hides. The circular shape of the ger enables it to withstand winds of up to 90 mph.
Dogons of Mali
Many desert towns are built from the materials of the desert itself ╨ some desert dwellers in Tunisia dig cool cave-like houses in the ground itself. Others like the Dogon people of Mali in northwest Africa make houses from mud, which is mixed with straw and water to make bricks which are baked in the hot sun. The Dogon people get their water from nearby mountain pools.
The Dogon people have their own unique religion which ranks living things into a distinct order. The desert tortoise is revered because it is so hardy, and this animal is a sacred symbol for the Dogon.
Australian Aborigines
The earliest human remains come from Australia, and probably belong to the Aborigines ancestors. It is thought that man may have arrived in Australia around 140,000 years ago.
Like the San of the Kalahari desert, the Aborigines are traditionally hunter-gatherers, although European influence has ╘westernized╒ many of the surviving Aborigines, and indeed the early settlers also killed a large number of the original inhabitants and also introduced diseases which further reduced the indigenous population. There is currently a movement of some Aborigines back to remote areas to live more harmoniously with the desert and its wildlife.
Aborigines travel from place to place carrying only their hunting implements and food, hunting game and gathering plants to eat as they move along. They use weapons like the boomerang ╨ a curved piece of wood which is shaped so that it returns to the thrower if it misses its target ╨ and the spear. Like the San, Aborigines are very dark skinned and dress in loin cloths ╨ the temperature in these desert areas rarely falls low enough for them to need extra clothing, and their heavy skin pigmentation offers protection against the sun╒s harmful radiation.
Ghosts in the desert
The native people of the deserts of the world have lived in the desert for thousands of years. Their cultures and traditions are geared to the desert's climate and resources.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many Americans moved to the desert ╨ sometimes in the search for gold or to try to exploit the desert's mineral wealth. All too often they found that desert life is harsh for outsiders.
The American southwest is littered with the evidence of such adventure, with a number of so-called 'ghost towns'. These towns remain to remind us that the desert is not to be taken lightly.
The movie clip on this page describes one such town ╨ Rhyolite, on the California/Nevada border close to Death Valley. This town
