The proposed National Desertification Commission recently scaled the crucial second reading stage at the Senate when the bill was unanimously passed.

The bill however faced initial opposition from mainly Southern Senators who pushed for inclusion other environmental hazards in the responsibilities to be saddled the commission, I found these opposition from the Southern Senators as selfish and uncalled for Just few months back President Umaru Musa Yar'adua introduce to these nation a ministry that will be in charge of the Niger Delta and a minister will be appointed.

Senator Ahmed Lawan (ANPP Yobe North), who sponsored the bill at the National Assembly on desertification caused, in the frontline states of Yobe, Adamawa, Katsina, Jigawa, Sokoto, Bauchi and Gombe. I wish to congratulate him for his brilliant idea in sponsoring such a bill. Other serving senators in the North should study or make a research on environmental problems surrounding Northern Nigeria, such as our agricultural problems on how it could be solve for a better production of the sector. Desertification is the persistent degradation of dry land ecosystem by variations in climate and human activities.

Home to a third of the human population in 2000, dry land occupy nearly half of Earth's Land area. Across the world, desertification affects the livelihoods of millions people who rely on the benefits that provide. In dry lands, water scarcity limit to the production crops, forage, food, and other services ecosystem provide to humans. Dry lands are therefore highly vulnerable to increases in human pressures and climate variability, especially substation and central Asian dry lands. Some 10 to 20% dray lands are already degraded, and ongoing desertification threatens the world's poorest populations and the prospects of poverty reduction. Therefore, desertification is one of the greatest environmental challenges today and a major barrier to meeting basic human needs in dry lands.

Desertification and human well-being, how are they linked? More people as at today depend on ecosystem services for their basic needs than in any other ecosystem. Many of their resources, such as crops, livestock, full-wood, and construction materials depend on the growth of plants, which in turn depends on water availability and climate conditions fluctuations in the services supplied by ecosystems are normal, especially in dry lands where water supply is irregular and scare.

When dry land ecosystem is no longer capable to recover from previous pressures a downward spiral of desertification many follow, though it is not inevitable.

Desertification affects a wide range of services provided by ecosystems to humans products such as food and water, natural processes such as climate regulation, but also non-material services such as recreation, and supporting services such as conservation, changes can be quantified and methods are available to prevent, reduce, or reverse them.

When people are faced with desertification problems, they often respond by making use of land that is even less productive, transforming pieces of range land into cultivated land, for moving towards cities or even to other countries. This can lead to unsustainable agricultural practices. Further land degradation, exacerbated urban sprawl, and socio-political problems.

Desertification who is mostly affected, it takes place in dry lands all over the world. 10 to 20% of all dry lands already are been degraded, precise extent of desertification is very difficult to estimate, because few comprehensive assessments have been made so far. Majority of dray land populations lag far believe in developing countries. Compared to the rest of the world, these populations lag far behind in terms of human well-being per capital income and infant mortality. The situation is worst in the dry lands of Asia and some Africa countries. Dry land populations are often marginalized and unable to play a role in decision making processes that affect that well-being making them even more vulnerable.

Desertification has environmental impacts that go beyond the areas directly affected. For instance, loss of vegetation can increase the formation of large dust clouds that can cause health problems in more densely populated areas, thousand of kilometers away. The social and political impacts of desertification also reach non-dry land areas for example, human migrations from dry land to cities and other countries can harm political and economic stability.