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(FILE) A bank of desert fences designed to slow down the encroachment of dunes and encourage vegetation to grow near the Trans-Sahara highway through Mauritania, Monday 10 November 2003. Mauritania is to launch a programme to replant trees in the desert north of the country. The Sahel desert is encroaching on forested land in Mauritania at a rate of seven kilometers a year, according to official statistics. This week, June 13-20 2004, the United Nations marked the 10th anniversary of the Convention to Combat Desertification, a plan aimed at stopping the phenomenon. One-third of the Earth's surface is at risk, driving people into cities and destroying agriculture in vast plains of Africa. Thirty-one percent of Spain is threatened, while China has lost 36,000 square miles to desert since the 1950s. ..EPA PHOTO/NIC BOTHMA EPA/NIC BOTHMA