<P> Desertification is recognized as a major threat to biodiversity . Some countries have developed Biodiversity Action Plans to counter its effects, particularly in relation to the protection of endangered flora and fauna . </P> <P> Reforestation gets at one of the root causes of desertification and is not just a treatment of the symptoms . Environmental organizations work in places where deforestation and desertification are contributing to extreme poverty . There they focus primarily on educating the local population about the dangers of deforestation and sometimes employ them to grow seedlings, which they transfer to severely deforested areas during the rainy season . The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched the FAO Drylands Restoration Initiative in 2012 to draw together knowledge and experience on dryland restoration . In 2015, FAO published global guidelines for the restoration of degraded forests and landscapes in drylands, in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency . </P> <P> Currently, one of the major methods that has been finding success in this battle with desertification . This is known as China's "Great Green Wall ." This wall is a much larger scaled version of what American farmers did in the 1930s to stop the great Midwest dust bowl . This plan was proposed in the late 1970s, and has become a major ecological engineering project that is not predicted to end until the year 2055 . According to Chinese reports, there have been nearly 66,000,000,000 trees planted in China's great green wall . Due to the success that China has been finding in stopping the spread of desertification . Through their success with their wall, plans are currently be made in Africa to start a "wall" along the borders of the Sahara desert as well . </P> <P> Techniques focus on two aspects: provisioning of water, and fixation and hyper - fertilizing soil . </P>

Conversion of productive land to desert is known as degradation