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... of sustainability, analysis of drylands has variously drawn upon Malthusian ideas of carrying capacity, Hardin's (1968) idea of 'the tragedy of the commons' in terms of property rights and land tenure, and broader themes such as the colonial mindset and native irrationality, post-colonialism and development (Mortimore, 1998). Desertification has been the dominant conceptualisation through which these ideas have been reformulated and refracted in dryland regions, leading to its consecration in international law as a discrete chapter of Agenda 21 (Adams, 2003). Although the process of desertification has been the subject of over eighty years of scientific research and policy intervention, it remains hotly contested (Thomas, 1997). The term was coined by Aubreville in 1949, yet over 100 definitions have since been published (Glanz & Orlovsky, 1985). In 1995, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) defined desertification as 'land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various ...