land degradation/conservation is a matter of life or death to hundreds of millions of people. There is general agreement too that in spite of the great efforts being made to combat desertification in the last 10 years, the problem is growing worse every day. On the other hand the technology and know-how to deal with all sorts of land degradation problems is available everywhere in abundance. Why then do we in the developing world, the most affected by the problem, seem handicapped or not able to deal effectively with it? What do we really lack? Do we lack the knowledge, the experience, the money or do we lack the will to live?