How can desertification control and development be reconciled?
The pre-Saharan region of Jeffara, located in the South-East of Tunisia, is particularly exposed to the risk of desertification, like most of the arid or semi-arid regions of the Mediterranean Rim. It is also prey to deep socio-economic changes. This situation raises the major challenge of ensuring the balance between protection of the various ecosystems and the development of rural populations who live in them. Increasing economic diversification, accelerated and amplified in the context of rural policy reform and globalization of trade, has contributed to an intensification of desertification processes, in spite of the efforts nevertheless exerted by government organizations. In order better to understand the processes involved in changes taking place in Jeffara and identify the limits beyond which the pressure of human activity causes an irreversible depletion of natural resources, a multidisciplinary research programme was set up in 2000 by the IRD, working in conjunction with loca
