DESERTIFICATION IN THE NORTHEAST OF BRAZIL: THE NATURAL RESOURCES USE AND THE LAND DEGRADATION

The Agenda 21 and the United Nations Convention for Desertification Combat definesdesertification as the degradation of lands in arid regions, semi-arid and sub-wet dried,resulting from various factors, among them the weather variations and the human activities.This understanding, besides marking the geographical space to be taken into consideration,undoes with the clearly climatic view of the question and proves that desertification has itsorigin in complex interactions of physical factors, biologics, political, socials, cultural andeconomics. However, it’s necessary to recognize that there are generally more serious causes,as the poverty, that leaves no alternative for the husbandmen only get from land the maximumpossible to supply the family’s immediate necessity even affecting its subsistence for a longtime. In terms of world, semi-arid regions represent 1/3 of the planet's surface, where lives 1/5of the population, more than 1 million people. Twenty-two per cent is the participation ofthese areas in the production of foods. The Semi-arid of Brazil is registered as one of thephysiographic zones of the Northeast Region, representing about 57% of this territory. Theorganization of the economical process, historically based on extensive cattle breeding andagriculture, and on the existence of some products of larger importance in the market, like thecase of cotton was, always based on an agrarian structure dominated by land concentrations.In the more diffused desertification process in the North-eastern semi-arid this pattern hasbeen constructed on alarming proportions, aggravated and reaffirmed by the occurrence ofperiodic droughts and the peculiarities due to the systems of production that appear from thisprocess directly contrary to the correct manners of use of the natural resources, in option to,where and how to develop the agricultural activities.