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This very well could have some truth. This video popped up on youtube recommends a few weeks ago (Iran). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJe8wWFh_w0 https://w

This very well could have some truth. This video popped up on youtube recommends a few weeks ago (Iran). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJe8wWFh_w0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJe8wWFh_w0 I've never seen ground that naked, not a spec of green except for trees. (and this coming from someone who lives in a very arid region of the SouthWestern US). Even very arid land (in Nevada or Arizona for instance) has significant vegetation so I wondered what was going on. Part of the way through the video (6:09) it becomes apparent (to me anyway). Goats and sheep. Somewhere in there they are actually beating tree leaves down for the critters to eat because there is simply nothing else.

jseutter 4y ago
A similar thing happened in south Texas - the land that Big Bend state park now occupies was grassland in the 1880s but because it featured low rainfall, was quickly overgrazed. The owners ended up giving the land to the state because it had been turned into worthless desert, coincidentally in 1935. Now 85 years later it still hasn't recovered to grassland but has beautiful desert vegetation. It is simultaneously beautiful and horrible.
wahern 4y ago
That's a fascinatingly stark landscape. I've visited rural communities in Mexico (semi-arid), Ecuador (highland grass lands), and SE Asia (jungle) that have that same remote village vibe, and the lifestyle similarity makes the contrast with the landscape all the more fascinating. I've also visited the Gobi desert (at least, the edge of the Gobi, where the mile-high sand dunes meet the endless grass lands) and that landscape in Iran somehow seems so much more desolate. Judging by this 1977 UNESCO publication, "A Halt to Desert Advance", https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000046663 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000046663, this recent IPCC report on desertification, https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/ https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/, and the consistency between them, it would seem grazing is indeed considered a major factor, if not the major factor in many areas, for desertification[1]. [1] Maybe the author wasn't using the terminology correctly, or the terminology shifted or was refined subsequently, but in the article, "A precarious balance upset", from the 1977 publication the author suggests that desertification can at least in principle lead to aridification as stripping the land of vegetation dries out the soil, which can ultimately effect precipitation patterns. EDIT: Okay, I think I get it now. It's the reverse: aridification can lead to long-term desertification, while there other processes that can establish long-term desertification, notwithstanding the end result is also aridity.
akiselev 4y ago
I don't think it's the goats! I think it's the salinity found in parts of the Zagros mountains and this video was probably recorded in the Lake Urmia watershed. Pistachios are especially salt tolerant so they're the only plants that can grow there, despite the marine deposits.
- mythrwy 4y ago
  Interesting read on Lake Urmia! One thing that terrain is not though is part of the Lake Urmia watershed, as it's high mountains that have obviously been inhabited for a long time.

jseutter 4y ago

A similar thing happened in south Texas - the land that Big Bend state park now occupies was grassland in the 1880s but because it featured low rainfall, was quickly overgrazed. The owners ended up giving the land to the state because it had been turned into worthless desert, coincidentally in 1935. Now 85 years later it still hasn't recovered to grassland but has beautiful desert vegetation. It is simultaneously beautiful and horrible.

wahern 4y ago

That's a fascinatingly stark landscape. I've visited rural communities in Mexico (semi-arid), Ecuador (highland grass lands), and SE Asia (jungle) that have that same remote village vibe, and the lifestyle similarity makes the contrast with the landscape all the more fascinating. I've also visited the Gobi desert (at least, the edge of the Gobi, where the mile-high sand dunes meet the endless grass lands) and that landscape in Iran somehow seems so much more desolate. Judging by this 1977 UNESCO publication, "A Halt to Desert Advance", https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000046663 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000046663, this recent IPCC report on desertification, https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/ https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/, and the consistency between them, it would seem grazing is indeed considered a major factor, if not the major factor in many areas, for desertification[1]. [1] Maybe the author wasn't using the terminology correctly, or the terminology shifted or was refined subsequently, but in the article, "A precarious balance upset", from the 1977 publication the author suggests that desertification can at least in principle lead to aridification as stripping the land of vegetation dries out the soil, which can ultimately effect precipitation patterns. EDIT: Okay, I think I get it now. It's the reverse: aridification can lead to long-term desertification, while there other processes that can establish long-term desertification, notwithstanding the end result is also aridity.

akiselev 4y ago

I don't think it's the goats! I think it's the salinity found in parts of the Zagros mountains and this video was probably recorded in the Lake Urmia watershed. Pistachios are especially salt tolerant so they're the only plants that can grow there, despite the marine deposits.

mythrwy 4y ago
Interesting read on Lake Urmia! One thing that terrain is not though is part of the Lake Urmia watershed, as it's high mountains that have obviously been inhabited for a long time.