Environmental Degradation and Dislocation in Africa

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION:

Concerns about environmental degradation stem from the fact that it is a global problem, even though the magnitude of the problem differs from region to region and from country to country. The effects of environmental degradation are also unevenly distributed across regions and across countries. In particular, in the Southern Africa sub-region, the effects of environmental degradation are quite pronounced. This is partly because the majority of the population depends on environmental resources for their survival, as is the case with other parts of Africa. This, of course, is not applicable to countries in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, profound economic stagnation experienced by many countries in the sub-region, combined with weakening environmental governance, evidenced by the lack of environmentally sound policies, caused harm to sensitive ecosystems and resulted in degradation, lowered agricultural productivity and increase poverty

Little reliable data is available on the extent of land degradation in Africa. However, anyone who has travelled through the continent has observed that land degradation is widespread and serious. The presence of gullies and sand dunes, of degraded forests and grazing lands are obvious, although the effects of sheet erosion and declining soil fertility are less noticeable. The wealth of Africa depends on her ability to conserve and manage her land resources. It is a well known fact that soil degradation not only results in decreased food production but also in droughts, ecological imbalance and consequent degradation of the quality of life. In Africa, the most conspicuous symptoms of the negative impact of land degradation on food production are stagnating and declining yields and increasing levels of poverty. Throughout the continent, regardless of the climatic zone, meteorological records show that unpredictability of rains is a common feature. In the Sahel, variations in total...