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CARNAÚBA DOS DANTAS, Brazil — The land that has fed the Dantas family for over 150 years carries cotton fields, beanstalks up to the hips of a grown man, and a river that leads to a waterfall when it rains enough.

But in the last day, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees, the river dried up, the crops did not grow, and the family’s 30 remaining cattle were rapidly depleting the last pool of water.

“Fifty years from now there won’t be a soul living here,” said 80-year-old Inácio Batista Dantas, balanced in a weathered hammock. “I tell my grandchildren that things are going to get very difficult.”

Her 16-year-old granddaughter, Hellena, listened and pushed back. He grew up here. “I plan to work in these lands,” he said.

Scientists agree with his grandfather. Much of Brazil’s vast northeast is actually turning into desert – a process called desertification that is worsening across the planet.

Climate change is a culprit. But faced with harsh economic realities, local residents also made short-term decisions that had long-term consequences—such as clearing trees for livestock and extracting clay for the area’s tile industry.

desertification It is a natural disaster that unfolds in slow motion in regions home to half a billion people. northern china and North Africa with distant Russia and American Southwest.

The process does not usually result in sand dunes reminiscent of the Sahara. Instead, higher temperatures and less rain, combined with deforestation and over-farming, are making the soil scorched, lifeless and nearly nutrientless, unable to feed grass to feed crops or even livestock.

it succeeded one of the biggest threats the ability of civilization to feed itself.

“There is ample evidence that desertification is already affecting food production and reducing crop yields,” said Alisher Mirzabaev, an agricultural economist at the University of Bonn in Germany. 2019 United Nations report on the subject. “And it will get worse with climate change.”

northeast of Brazil most densely populated arid areasIt is among those most at risk, with roughly 53 million people. Known for the area droughts and poverty, inspirational novels It’s about poor field workers who are forced to leave the land, and also about a musical genre called Baião. accordion supported lyrics Tell me about the hard life here.

But things are getting worse. The region experienced the longest recorded drought from 2012 to 2017, and this year, another drought dries up most of Brazil.

United Nations in August. the last major report on climate change He said Brazil’s northeast is facing rising temperatures, a sharp drop in groundwater and more frequent and intense droughts. Satellite imagery and field tests show that 13 percent of the land has already lost its fertility, while almost the rest of the region is at risk.

“It’s reaching a tipping point,” he said. Humberto BarbosaOne of the best experts on desertification, who has studied the northeastern part of Brazil for years. “A point of no return.”

President Jair Bolsonaro did not take any significant action to reverse the process. Instead, it has withdrawn environmental regulationswhile empowering and supervising miners and farmers sharp increase in deforestation inside country. This helps feed the excess air loops. Government data released last month showed Amazon forests being destroyed worst in 15 years.

Increasing deforestation in Brazil has alarmed authorities around the world as it threatens the Amazon rainforest’s ability to extract carbon from the atmosphere. But it is also the primary cause of desertification, which overshadows the humidity of the air and the soil.

In the Seridó region, made up of dusty towns, family farms and industrial factories, the influence of the inhabitants on the land is most clearly demonstrated by the rise of the ceramics industry.

In the early 1980s, local businessmen saw an opportunity in the frequent droughts. When reservoirs and rivers evaporated, they exposed the nutrient-rich clay at the bottom, perfect for producing the red roof tiles popular in much of the country.

These entrepreneurs began paying landlords for their mud, and within a few years dozens of ceramic factories employed hundreds of people. With a population of 21,000, Parelhas built a metal arch on the main road to the town and declared it the “Tile Capital”.

Adelson Olivera da Costa was one of the industry pioneers, starting in 1980 as the manager of one of Parelhas’ first factories and buying it ten years later. Recently, several dozen workers at his small factory have laid out thousands of tiles to dry in the midday sun.

“Drought is good news for us,” Mr. da Costa said in his cramped office. He said it has 30 employees, and neighboring factories run by a son and a daughter have dozens of employees.

For a region long dependent on crops and livestock, ceramics was the start of an economic leap. But over time, the results became clear. Factories make the tiles by mixing clay with water and then firing them in a wood-burning oven. All these materials – water, wood and clay – are insufficient here.

Mr da Costa’s factory, one of the smaller operations in the area, uses more than 2,500 gallons of water per week from a nearby well. “People aren’t sure,” he said of the water, “but we think it will never run out.”

Recent studies estimate, nevertheless, the groundwater of the region is declining.

The factory’s furnace works all night, Monday through Friday. Just before 5 a.m. on a weekday, two men removed branches and trunks from large piles and filled them into six fireplaces that heated a house-sized furnace. The operation consumes 60 to 75 cubic meters of wood per week, or enough to fill five large dump trucks.

Then there is clay, which is the main ingredient of tiles. Years ago, Mr da Costa said his operation had picked clay from dried lake beds within a few miles. With those now depleted, he pulls the mud away for hours.

Aldrin Perez, a Brazilian government scientist who monitors desertification, said it takes 300 years to deposit one centimeter of soil, while ceramic companies take three to five feet of soil each time they extract clay. “They destroy meters of depth formed over millions of years in seconds,” he said.

This can have a devastating effect. The soil and clay they extract are crucial to maintaining the proper balance of nutrients and moisture in the surrounding land.

“It’s killing the region,” said Damião Santos Ferreira, manager of Mr da Costa’s factory, explaining why some people are hesitant to sell their clay. “It’s never the same.”

The factory pays landowners about $10 for 30 tons of clay, he said.

By now, most landlords know the results. Yet many are still desperate enough to sell. One of them was Mr. Dantas.

In 2010, in another tough dry season, Mr. Dantas said his family was almost out of money. They decided to make money from their mud to feed themselves and their cattle.

“Everyone agreed,” said Mr. Dantas. “It was necessary,” said his son Paulo.

The clay came from a reservoir that Mr. Dantas’ great-grandfather built in the 19th century to supply water to their 506-acre estate. When it evaporated each dry season, the family had planted beans, corn, and cotton on the fertile bed left behind. It was one of the most fertile lands.

In 2010, however, the family watched four men dig and pull the soil with shovels instead of cultivating. It took them three months. They paid about $3,500 for the clay.

The money helped the family survive the years of drought that followed. But the land around the reservoir remained almost barren. Paulo Dantas planted corn, beans and watermelons a few years later, but the crop was so miserable that they were fed to the cattle.

Then, last year it rained much more than usual. The reservoir filled to about six feet. Mr. Dantas’ granddaughter, Hellena, swam in it. When it dried, the family sowed seeds. Grasses for cattle grew, but beans and corn withered.

“I really regret it,” said Mr. Dantas of selling the clay. “I saw it wasn’t good. But the kids needed it.”

As he stood on the embankment of the reservoir, he gazed at the parched land as the sun went down. “I had no other choice,” he said.