land-resources.com

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.