1. Etymology
desert(n.1) c. 1200, "wasteland, wilderness, barren area," wooded or not, from Old French desert (12c.) "desert, wilderness, wasteland; destruction, ruin" and directly from Late Latin desertum (source of Italian diserto, Old Provençal dezert, Spanish desierto), literally "thing abandoned" (used in Vulgate to translate "wilderness"), noun use of neuter past participle of Latin deserere "forsake" (see desert (v.)).
2. What is desertification?
European Court of Auditors in their paper
“Desertification in the EU” published in June 2018 describes desertification:
“Desertification is a form of land degradation in drylands. It results from unsustainable land management practices and climatic factors. Thirteen EU Member States, not only in the Mediterranean region, but also in Central and Eastern Europe, have declared that they are affected by desertification.
Desertification is a consequence, but also a cause of climate change : it is aggravated by more droughts, rising temperatures, less precipitation, and it also magnifies climate change by reducing the capacity of soil to retain carbon.
Desertification does not imply the presence of deserts. It can occur far from any climatic desert, and the presence or absence of a nearby desert has no direct relation to the desertification process.
There are fine lines between drylands, desertified lands and deserts, but, once they are crossed, it is hard to return, as restoring soil is a slow process.
It can take 500 years for 2.5 cm of soil to form but only a few years to destroy it. It is much more cost-effective to protect drylands from degradation than to reverse the process.”
3. Cultural desertification
Desertification serves as an analogy describing processes of societal degradation, the loss of diversity, complexity and vibrancy of places or communities. Cultural deserts are spaces lacking agency, connectivity, or interests in intellectual and artistic activity. Philosopher Franco “Bifo” Berardi in his book “Breathing: Chaos and Poetry” writes:
“Existence alone has no meaning: this is the truth that we learn from traversing the desert of meaninglessness. But this truth is not frightening so long as we can find oases in the desert: oases of friendship, love, intellectual and erotic sharing, conspiration and the projection of a common landscape. Such oases are the precondition for sensuous consciousness and for shared imagination.”
OASIS 2027 project aims to deepen the understanding of the connection of nature and culture, of health of the planet, humanity and the arts.
Find out more about the desert of the real via our
digital library.
