World's land turning to dust

THE world is turning to dust, with increasingly vast areas becoming desert wastelands every year and threatening to send millions of people fleeing to greener countries, the UN said.

In Australia, irrigation systems are pumping up salty water and slowly poisoning some farms, just one of many problems the world body has highlighted.

One-third of the Earth's surface is now at risk, it says, driving people into cities and destroying agriculture in vast swaths of Africa.

Thirty-one per cent of Spain is at risk of becoming a desert, while China has lost 92,100sq km - an area the size of Portugal - since the 1950s.

This week, the UN marks the 10th anniversary of the Convention to Combat Desertification, a plan aimed at stopping the phenomenon. However, the transformation into desert seems to be picking up speed - doubling its pace since the 1970s.

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