Drylands management has to a large extent been seen as a defensive battle: a struggle to protect and conserve dryland resources from degradation.a combat against desertification. Although there are environmental resource problems threatening the livelihood security of people in the world.s drylands, there should perhaps be more focus on possibilities, not just on problems.

...Closer studies of long-term landscape changes, of rangeland ecology, of community natural resource management regimes, and of agricultural intensification processes reveal many cases where the resource management practices adopted by the people living in an area have unjustly been seen as degrading the land. Thus, overgrazing has probably been exaggerated as a problem, especially in the driest areas. Much is still unknown, however, about how dryland ecosystems are affected by different resource management practices.