For many years Africa has
suffered severely from land degradation. The drying up of Lake
Chad is a well-known example. Deforestation, soil erosion and
pasture degradation are extensive. Reduction in soil fertility
is the most widespread problem, and the most serious in its effects
on the rural population. Endemic food shortages and increasingly
frequent emergencies testify to this.
The UNEP Atlas of Africa's
Changing Environment
A new UNEP
atlas, based on comparison of satellite photographs over a
30-year period, provides a pictorial record. Forest clearance
and the spread of cultivation are the most striking changes. Loss
of biodiversity is a consequence. Visual evidence of climatic
change is provided by shrinkage of the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro.
The
atlas gives accounts of the major changes, highlighting the leading
forms of land degradation for each of 54 countries.
Population
increase the cause of land degradation
In
launching the Atlas Marion Cheatle, Deputy Director of UNEP's
early warning system, said that the biggest factor contributing
to changes was the rise in Africa's population. This is presently
rising at 2.3% each year, currently 965 million compared with
415 million in 1975.
Governments
and international agencies, such as FAO, the World Bank, the International
Food Policy Research Institute, and UNEP itself, need to recognize
that all their efforts at development are being counteracted,
sometimes nullified, by the inexorable impact of population increase
(see this site, pages on
Poverty, Hunger and Population, and Give
Women What they Want).
Unless
more can be done to check population increase, Africa's environment
will continue to degrade, and its peoples to suffer.