INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

"I think Israel is well ahead of the curve," Federoff said, after she and other delegates toured examples of local advances in water and soil conservation, and of desert agricultural technology by Israeli researchers and firms - considered world leaders in the field.

Federoff, who is also a visiting professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, praised the cooperation between countries represented at the event - some of which have no official relations with Israel.

"Scientists speak a common language, they recognize common problems, they work together, and that is enormously important - and this conference is really emblematic of that," Federoff said of the informal, down-to-earth atmosphere between the delegates. She stressed three points that can make a difference for the future:

"The countries that have worked their way out of poverty recently: China, India, Brazil, have all done this by investing in education, research and agriculture," she said.

Prof. Lu Yihe from Chinese Academy of Science, whose daily focus is holding the earth down by reforestation and other greening techniques in China's parched northwestern gobi region, said his government was devoted to saving every hectare of land.

"China attaches much importance to the ecological rehabilitation," he said, including "the soil erosion and low agricultural productivity, so the government places a lot of importance on this issue."

Yihe, who attended the conference with two other colleagues from different areas of China, said they were learning a lot from the international intellectual exchanges.

"We have some lessons to learn in implementing these kinds of re-habitation projects," he adding, referring the vast areas he's working for.

Lu and the other delegates, according to Federoff, will likely have a lot of new and useful knowledge and techniques to take back to their home countries.

She strongly backs such international collaborations like the Drylands, Deserts and Decertification Conference, "because they bring people together, they create respect and they solve problems, " Federoff said.