When people imagine environmental decline, they often picture melting glaciers, disappearing forests, or smoke rising from industrial skylines.
Few picture grass, yet some of the most important climate battles of our generation should be fought in places many overlook such as open landscapes of grasses, shrubs, livestock routes, dry valleys and seasonal rivers. They should be fought in rangelands.
This year, as the world marks World Desertification and Drought Day on 17 June under the theme “Rangelands: Recognise. Respect. Restore,” Kenya will stand at the centre of the global conversation by hosting the official international commemoration in Kilifi County together with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
A fitting responsibility for a country whose story is deeply tied to drylands and pastoral landscapes.
Rangelands cover roughly 80 per cent of Kenya’s land area and sustain millions of livelihoods. Across Africa, drylands cover approximately 65 per cent of the continent and support hundreds of millions of people.
They are home to pastoralist communities, wildlife, livestock economies, and unique ecosystems that have adapted to thrive under challenging conditions.
Globally, rangelands cover more than half of the Earth’s land surface and support around two billion people. Yet up to half of these landscapes are already degraded or at risk.
That statistic should concern all of us, because when rangelands fail, the consequences do not stay local. Water becomes scarcer. Livestock productivity declines. Biodiversity disappears.
Migration pressures increase. Food prices rise. Communities become more vulnerable to conflict and drought. And the land itself begins to forget how to hold water.
Anyone who has travelled through parts of Samburu, Turkana, Marsabit or Kajiado after prolonged dry periods may recognise this reality.
Riverbeds that once carried seasonal flows become stretches of exposed earth. Livestock move further. Wells deepen. Rain may eventually come, but the land no longer receives it the same way.
Some years ago during discussions in dryland regions, I heard a pastoralist say something I have never forgotten: “Rain still comes. But the ground no longer remembers how to keep it.” In one sentence, he captured what scientists describe using technical language: declining infiltration, degraded soils and weakened water retention.
That insight deserves more attention. Most people think drought simply means not enough rain. But increasingly, drought is becoming a problem of what happens after rain falls. Healthy land behaves like a sponge.
Rain infiltrates the soil, replenishes underground aquifers, supports vegetation and slowly releases moisture back into ecosystems. While degraded land behaves like concrete. Rain arrives in bursts, rushes across hardened surfaces, causes erosion, and disappears before it can recharge groundwater.
In many dryland regions, restoring landscapes is not only about bringing back vegetation, it is about rebuilding the land’s ability to store water. One of the most overlooked opportunities is restoring underground water systems through managed aquifer recharge.
Instead of allowing seasonal floods to disappear downstream, water can be slowed and directed into recharge basins, infiltration zones and sand-storage systems where it gradually replenishes groundwater reserves.
Across dry regions globally, these approaches are helping communities improve water availability while reducing pressure on boreholes.
In Kenya, this idea is not unfamiliar; communities have long understood that water security begins before the water reaches the tap.
Israel is often described as a water innovation country. But water scarcity shaped much of our environmental history. More than 60 per cent of Israel is arid or semi-arid. Rainfall is limited and uneven throughout the year.
For decades, our challenge was simple: how do you produce food, sustain communities, and protect ecosystems where water is scarce?
The answer was never one miracle solution. It was layers of practical adaptation. We invested in precision irrigation that delivers water directly to plant roots and dramatically reduces losses. We expanded wastewater recycling until treated water became a major resource for agriculture.
We advanced satellite monitoring, soil moisture sensors, remote sensing technologies, and precision agriculture tools now help farmers identify water stress and land degradation before it becomes visible to the human eye.
But one lesson became increasingly clear, technology works best when the landscape itself is healthy, that is why restoration matters.
Across dry regions globally, there are practical approaches already proving effective. Protecting natural vegetation around recharge zones allows rainwater to seep underground instead of disappearing into runoff. Small earthworks and contour bunds slow water movement.
Managed grazing allows grasses to regenerate. Restoration of seasonal wetlands helps recharge shallow aquifers. Native grasses with deep root systems increase water infiltration and stabilise soils.
Simple check dams built in gullies reduce erosion and retain moisture. These are not glamorous interventions but they work. And most importantly, they can be owned locally.
Another reason why rangelands deserve greater attention in climate discussions is because of carbon storage. When people think about carbon storage, they usually think of forests. Yet many rangelands are powerful carbon sinks in their own right.
Unlike forests, where much of the carbon is stored above ground in trunks and branches, rangelands store most of their carbon below the surface in extensive root systems and soils. Scientists estimate that the vast majority of carbon in grassland ecosystems is held underground, making these landscapes an often-overlooked ally in the fight against climate change.
In dryland regions, this underground carbon can be particularly resilient, remaining protected even when drought, fire or extreme weather affects vegetation above ground.
Restoring rangelands, therefore, does more than improve grazing conditions and water retention; it also helps remove carbon from the atmosphere and lock it safely in the soil.
Pastoral communities understand something modern climate conversations sometimes forget, that is, movement is not disorder.
Traditional grazing systems often evolved as sophisticated environmental management systems, allowing land time to recover while adapting to seasonal variability.
Respecting rangelands, therefore, also means respecting the people who have stewarded them for generations. There is wisdom in Indigenous and pastoral knowledge that deserves to sit alongside satellites, sensors and climate models.
Encouraging examples are already emerging. In Marsabit County, Israeli-Kenyan collaboration is contributing to the establishment of the North Horr Innovation and Sustainability Hub, which combines water solutions, renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, entrepreneurship, and skills development.
Its significance goes beyond technology. It demonstrates that resilience is strongest when communities, innovation, and environmental stewardship work together.
If we want meaningful restoration, we need to think beyond tree planting targets. Restoring a rangeland is different from restoring a forest. Success is measured not by how many seedlings survive, but by whether water stays longer in the soil, whether grasses return, whether biodiversity improves, whether aquifers recover, and whether families can continue earning livelihoods from the land.
That requires long-term thinking. Policies that reward restoration. Investment in dryland infrastructure. Support for community-led land management.
Better climate financing and stronger regional cooperation. Because ecosystems do not recognise borders. Land restoration must sit at the centre of climate adaptation strategies across Africa.
This World Desertification and Drought Day, perhaps the most important shift is not technical; it is cultural. We must stop treating rangelands as empty spaces waiting to become something else because they are already something. They are reservoirs of resilience.
They are climate infrastructure. They are biodiversity systems. They are economic assets. And if we recognise them, respect them and restore them, they may become one of our strongest allies in building a more secure future. Because the simple truth is that:
“Tusipoitunza ardhi, ardhi haitatutunza” translated to, if we do not care for the land, the land will not care for us.
Asanteni sana!
By H.E. Gideon Behar, Ambassador of Israel to Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi & Seychelles; Permanent Representative to UNEP
& UN-Habitat and the former Israeli Special Envoy for Climate Change and
Sustainability, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
