“In One Year, Sahara Engulfs Much of Chad,” heralds another. Reams are being written on the threat of spreading deserts.

Now read below the headlines. “The Sahara has been extending its desert barrenness southward at the rate of 6 to 12 miles [10 to 20 km] a year for more than a decade, gradually incorporating the Sahel, the semiarid belt at its southern fringe,” says The New York Times of January 2, 1985.

“The expansion of the desert is threatening the very existence of some countries, including Mauritania, where government officials say the Sahara Desert is moving south at a rate of four miles [6 km] a year. Mauritanians talk about the days when lions lived in the wooded areas of the country, the same areas that today are no more than a barren landscape of dead trees and blowing sand,” relates The Atlanta Journal and Constitution of January 20, 1985.