It is not undeserved: he has succeeded in transforming a barren land into one that has 18, 000 kilometres (11, 400 miles) of tarmac roads and a network of schools and clinics.

ECONOMIST: Botswana

As I peer through the heavy calibre bullet belt of the door gunner, suddenly lush, green fields appear and then out of this wilderness, sparkling in the sun rises the Helmand river bringing life to this barren land.

BBC: Afghanistan: Landing in the camp

In the opening pages of Cry, the Beloved Country, the poignant novel about a disintegrating Zulu family, Alan Paton depicted the barren land left to the tribe by the late 1940s and, with bitter brevity, described what had befallen the people struggling to survive on it.

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For example, multiple pipelines could go on one right of way, or wind turbines might go on land already barren because of old coal mining.

NPR: Northeast Drilling Boom Threatens Forest Wildlife

It would have spanned millions years of history, from the Precambrian Era when land was barren and devoid of life to the age when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

BBC: Fragments of ancient continent buried under Indian Ocean

Spewing volcanoes and forbidding lava fields make for a land of beautiful, barren expanses and infinite adventure.

BBC: Mini guide to Iceland's activities

For example, multiple pipelines could be placed on one right of way, or wind turbines might go on land that is already barren because of old coal mining.

WSJ: Northeast drilling boom threatens forest wildlife

The private land that has been offered for sale to the government has often been unirrigated, remote or barren.

CNN: INSIDE STORY: PROMISED LAND

The terrain was so barren that people could only survive there by roaming ceaselessly from place to place in search of water and grazing land.

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