ALN logo; link to Arid Lands Newsletter Home page ALN No. 57, May/June 2005
Water efficiency II: Rural areas and agriculture

Addison, Figures 7a and 7b: Evidence of land use pressures

The effects of 12,000 years of land use pressures are represented here both by the severely overgrazed Atlantic pistache (Pistacia atlantica), one of the Project site's native trees, to the right; and below, by the stumps of firewood-stripped Phoenician juniper (Juniperus phoenicia) trees in what used to be an area of abundant native mixed oak and juniper forest. an Atlantic pistache tree whose lack of leaves and mangled trunk are eloquent signs of overgrazing
Severely stripped trunks of juniper trees in a deforested area

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