The world loses $10.6 trillion USD each year because of land degradation.

That’s more money than the GDP of Brazil, the UK, Russia and Germany combined.

You could buy every sports team in the world with $10 trillion.

More importantly, that’s enough to easily end extreme poverty, adequately feed and house all humans and invest substantially in education, women’s rights, health and economic development.

But land degradation generally happens precisely when humans try to develop economically by producing more food, creating more housing, expanding industries and so on.

So why has this gotten so out of hand? And can land be harnessed instead of degraded? Can land and civilization work together instead of at odds?

First of all, what is land degradation?

Land degradation is when human activities disturb the composition of land. To simplify it, imagine a cup of arsenic being poured on a lawn. The soil there would be damaged, the grass would probably die and insects would steer clear. That’s a tiny example of land degradation.

It normally entails a loss of biodiversity, a loss of soil nutrients, general erosion, increased vulnerability to natural disasters.

It can prevent humans from farming previously fertile plots, compromise drinking water and maximize storm damage. It can exacerbate global warming by preventing soil from soaking up carbon and can lead to reduced air quality when previously kept-in-check particles emerge.

So here are 4 of the biggest causes of land degradation:

Land clearance and deforestation

Deforestation not only removes trillions of trees, it devastates ecosystems. Plants rely on trees for shade and nutrients. Animals rely on trees for food, shelter and travel. Soil, which houses vibrant ecosystems of insects, bacteria and more, relies on trees for managing its composition.

So deforestation wipes out all of this vibrant natural activity. And all of this activity, when harnessed properly, can benefit humans greatly.

The good news: the rate of deforestation has slowed and the rate of forest rehabilitation has grown.

Development

To build a city or community, laborers first tame the land you want to build on. This could involve deforestation, stripping minerals and rocks, flattening hills and other land disruptions.

Then more workers come in to tear up lanes for roads and walkways, pour asphalt and concrete and then start putting up buildings, further clearing out what was there before.

This basically destroys a huge swatch of land. Imagine what this looks like on a global scale.

In coastal areas, development degrades natural buffers against waves. So when a storm hits the effects are maximized.  

The good news: more cities and communities are factoring the environment into designs.

Pollution

All of that development invariably leads to even more consequences once people start establishing themselves. Businesses start making things and citizens start consuming things and a whole lot of pollution occurs.

All of the garbage and sewage created by people on a daily basis has to go somewhere.

And countless businesses depend on resources that, when used, release toxins. Whether it’s the burning of coal to power a machine, the treatment of leather with arsenic or the use of mercury to extract gold, a lot of pollutants find their way into soil, water and air.

The good news: more awareness of pollution leads to less pollution and some countries are moving to close-to-zero pollution models.  

Bad farming practices

Farming should be therapeutic to land. Crops should nourish the soil with nutrients and water management and help to create environments for bugs that regulate the soil. This should be a symbiotic relationship, because better soil allows crops to robustly grow.

But in reality, farming tends to be harmful to land. Many farmers dedicate huge swaths of land to a single, nutrient-weak plant that overtime strips soil of its own nutrients. This in turn weakens the soil’s ability to nourish and protect the crop, so farmers resort to pesticides and herbicides to control conditions, which further harms the soil.

Over time, a once-vibrant stretch of land can come to look like a desert.  

The good news: better farming practices are spreading and GMOs could help change the narrative.

What can be done to stop further land degradation?

At root, degradation can be slowed if societies take a more respectful approach to land and ecosystems.

The full scope of an environment should be considered wherever human activity takes place and the health of all elements should be ensured.

This does not have to clash with human development. Instead, it can greatly aid human development.

If all countries practiced sustainable land management, $75.6 trillion USD per year could be added to the global economy.

That’s a lot of money, I know, but a healthy environment allows for a healthy economy.

Some best practices include effectively keeping water sources clean, farming in forests and allowing the surrounding environment to play a role, planting a mixture of crops and generally trying to mesh with the environment rather than displace it.

If you believe that land around the world has to be handled better, then go to TAKE ACTION NOW to tweet to world leaders to support Global Goal 7 on the environment and 15 on life on land (as well as the others) in The Global Goals.