Greening the desert

Desertification is a huge problem in many parts of the world. Threatening not only the food security of many humans but as well destroying more and more natural habitats of plants and animals. The cause of desertification is quite often human activities like cutting down rain forests followed by agricultural malpractice. Overgrazing by farm animals is one of the primary causes of desertification around the globe including Greece. Removal of vegetation leads to erosion which results in loss of topsoil. Once the topsoil is lost, it becomes very difficult to re-establish a self sustaining Eco system.
Some people have developed some clever systems to combat this ever increasing problems.
One of this systems is using Permaculture methods that can turn bare, infertile, salty desert soil into a self sustaining green oasis.
See here a video about the Greening the desert project using Permaculture
http://permaculture.org.au/2009/12/11/greening-the-desert-ii-final/

Another promising project is the Groasis Waterboxx.
It simulated natural conditions to help on plant growth and combining it with more advanced but simple techniques to improve the micro climate around  seedlings and harvesting  rain water and morning dew in arid climates, that will provide enough moisture to establish plants even under desert conditions.
See here how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Groasiswaterboxx#p/u/0/Se6cr-sFZGw