17th June World Day to Combat Desertification

Every year on June 17th, the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought highlights methods to prevent desertification. It’s also a day to focus on finding ways to recover from drought.

Desertification is the process by which fertile land becomes desert. This is usually a result of drought, deforestation, or inappropriate agriculture.

There are also ways to reverse land degradation. This includes planting trees, enriching the soil with nutrients, preventing soil erosion, and establishing seed banks.

It’s more important than ever to combat desertification and drought. This is because by the year 2050, there needs to be enough productive land to meet the demands of 10 billion people.

In Australia drought can be a major problem, as rainfall is not always the same every year. Indigenous Australians are very good at 'reading' country so a good place to start with children is to look at a book such as Country Tells Us When... by Taheena Cooper 

Some Australian picture books that help explain drought to children:

• Two Summers  by John Heffernan and Freya Blackwood

• It's a Miroocool! by Christine Harris and Ann James 

• All I Want for Christmas is Rain by Cori Brooke and Megan Forward

• When the Waterhole Dried Up by Kaye Baillie and Max Hamilton

• Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein and Bronwyn Bancroft

• Mrs White and the Red Desert by Josie Boyle and Maggie Prewett

• Drought by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley

• The Story of Rosy Dock by Jeannie Baker

Deforestation is a much harder topic to show children using picture books, but the few I can think of are excellent:

• A Forest by Marc Martin

• Where's the Elephant by Barroux

• The Tree and the River by Aaron Becker

• The Great Kapok Tree  by Lynne Cherry

• Refugees  by David Miller

• Turtle Taxi by Guundie Kuchling

• Window  by Jeannie Baker

• The Tree  by Neal layton

To show students the power of planting trees share one of the excellent picture book biographies about Wangari Maathai planting trees in Kenya.

• Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson

• Wangari's Trees of Peace  by Jeanette Winter

• Planting Peace  by Gwendolyn Hooks

• Mama Miti  by Donna Jo Napoli

• Wangari Maathai by Franck Prevot 

• Planting the trees of Kenya  by Claire Nivola

or something more general o trees like

• Trillions of Trees  by Kurt Cyrus

• Little Sap  by Jan Hughes

• It Starts with a Seed by Laura Knowles

SDG 15 Life on Land

Goal 15 Protect, and restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reduce land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Nature is critical to our survival: nature provides us with our oxygen, regulates our weather patterns, pollinates our crops, produces our food, feed and fibre. But it is under increasing stress. Human activity has altered almost 75 per cent of the earth’s surface, squeezing wildlife and nature into an ever-smaller corner of the planet.

The goal as stated above has so many aspects and is far too much to take in all at once for me, let alone a child under eight, so here I need to be very selective and break it into subheadings, such as deforestation, loss of habitat, extinction and  farming, all of which young children do know about and understand the meaning of.

Here is a list of books to select from.

The Tree by Neal Layton would be a good place to start because it looks at what will happen when a tree is cut down and it provides for debate about whether it was a good act or bad.

Here is the blurb:

A delightful picture book with a wonderful twist which encourages young children to think about the way animals and humans live side by side.  

The tree. Home to a family of birds in their nest, squirrels in their drey and rabbits in their burrow. But what happens to the animals when a man and woman decide to cut it down and use it for their dream house? Can the tree be home to both the animals and the humans? A simple yet fun and distinctive picture book, with a strong environmental message about the importance of respecting animal habitats.

Follow this up with a more factual book either more specifically about deforestation such as Marc Martin's Forest or reforestation such as Sally Nicholls and Carolina Rabei's book Who Makes a Forest?

Here's the blurb:

When a forest is cut down, the consequences are more than anyone could have anticipated. The forest is destroyed due to human greed, but grows again  through human care, giving hope and empowerment.

Teaching notes:

https://lamontbooks.com.au/media/19152/June-2012-A-Forest.pdf

Here's the blurb:

Who makes a forest? A wizard, a giant, an emperor? Come on a walk with Grandpa to discover how a forest is made, and see how a thousand tiny things can come together to change the face of the earth… Poetically written by award-winning Sally Nicholls and beautifully illustrated by Carolina Rabei, this gorgeous book features a non-fiction section about the different types of forests around the world, their importance to our ecosystem and the impact of deforestation on our planet. 

Of course this has only covered one aspect of this goal. You may choose to look at animal extinction or habitat loss. Many of the books on the Pinterest list also look at farming and the degradation of soil that comes with that and the hardship caused by climate.

From the booklet:

Ask • How can we make sure that we look after our land? 

 

• We read...

• This story made me think that we should...