Terrain Description: mostly highland with plateaus, hills, and mountains
Arable Land Use: 10.87%
Permanent Crop Land Use: 0.13%
Irrigated Land: 30 sq km (2003)
Total Renewable Water Resources: 5.2 cu km (1987)
Total Fresh water Withdrawal: 0.05 cu km/yr (40%/40%/20%)
Per Person Fresh Water Withdrawal: 28 cu m/yr (2000)
Natural Hazards Description: periodic droughts
Environmental Current Issues: population pressure forcing settlement in marginal areas results in overgrazing, severe soil erosion, and soil exhaustion; desertification; Highlands Water Project controls, stores, and redirects water to South Africa
The Basotho people rely on subsistence agriculture for survival. Animals raised by Lesotho farmers include cattle, donkeys, chickens, pigs, dogs, and sheep.
Moorosi Nchejana is one of 40 farmers in the village of Mabalane in Lesotho’s Mohale’s Hoek district who participated in a pilot programme by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to strengthen farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change (June 2012). Photo: IRIN / Mujahid Safodien