African Environmental Issues

Environment in Africa: continuity & change.

• Important to consider geological age of Africa & its tropical location.

• Both affect environmental processes. African soils are very old

& largely leached of their nutrients.

Tropical climates mean high average annual temperatures.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/rainforest/rainforest.html

Environment in Africa: continuity & change

• Africa is ancestral home to our species. • Over centuries humans have adapted their

lives & activities to environment. • Humans evolved to conform to their

environments & for greater part of their existence on earth have been constantly molded by their environments.

• Colonialism in Africa changed localized nature of regional economies & introduced new pressure from outside.

Main Environmental Issues:

• Deforestation

• Desertification

• Soil erosion & degradation

• Development & the environment – can the two be reconciled?

Deforestation • Typically occurs when trees are

cut down to provide firewood & timber as well as to free up space for crop cultivation.

• In case of Africa, rapid urbanization, drought, civil wars, oil & mineral extraction, & bush fires have also contributed.

• Major reason for deforestation in Africa is poverty & economic underdevelopment.

• 90% of African population uses fuelwood for cooking.

• With rapid increase in population growth & higher rates of urbanization the need for fuelwood as source of energy will continue to grow.

Deforestation

• The major cause of deforestation in Africa is clearing forest for crop production. Problem is related to

increased population growth Use of slash & burn/shifting

cultivation but with greatly reduced fallow periods.

• Logging for timber has also contributed and timber exports have been promoted by the structural adjustment programs of the IMF and World Bank.

Trucks loaded with logs in western Ivory Coast.

Traditional cultivation techniques usually extensive e.g., chitemene in Zambia. People live in dispersed hamlets with low pop.

density <25/sq. mi. Branches from felled trees collected in central

location & then burned. Ash releases nutrients such as nitrogen & raises soil

pH. Heat from burning fumigates soil, kills existing weed

seeds, & reduces soil to finer structure. Reduces labor requirements. Enables cultivation of crops such as millet, sorghum,

cassava, groundnuts, beans, maize.

• Done properly brings high returns with little effort on poor soils w/simple tools.

• Viability limited to a few years; after yield declines, new area cleared and initial site left to lie fallow.

• In other savanna areas people use more intensive systems that support greater density, but still involving some fallowing

Clearing forests for crop production

Soil erosion & degradation

• Like desertification is tied to problem of deforestation.

• Trees protect & hold soil. Once tropical rainforest

soils are exposed to sunlight their high iron content causes them to become hard & impermeable.

Soil degradation caused by erosion, overgrazing, & poor farming practices is worse in Africa than anywhere else in world.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/rainforest/rainforest.html

Key Environmental Issues

If the nutrients aren't in the soils, where do they come from?

Figure 5 shows a budget accounting that indicates nutrients are found mainly in living plant biomass and in the layer of decomposing litter; there is little nutrient content of the deeper soil, as there is in temperate-zone ecosystems. This suggests that plants are intercepting and taking up nutrients the moment they are released by decomposition.

Development & environment • Must these concerns be mutually exclusive and at

odds? • Easy to look at past and get impression that answer is

yes. • Examples:

• Cash crops • World Bank encourages substitution of cash crops for subsistence

crops. • Growers are then at mercy or world commodity market.

• Oil industry • Huge profits in Nigeria – where did they go? • Environmental problems – pollution from pipeline leaks, blowouts,

refinery effluents. • Social consequences – regional inequalities, political conflict.

MOSOP – Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Ken Saro Iwa.

Other environmental issues

• Toxic waste dumping Much comes from

developed countries.

Some internally generated.

• Wildlife conservation & tourism. Nyang’oro talks

mainly about it mainly from biodiversity standpoint.

2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump was a health crisis in Côte d'Ivoire in which a Panamanian registered ship, the Probo Koala, chartered by Dutch-based oil and commodity shipping company Trafigura Beheer BV, offloaded toxic waste at port of Abidjan. The waste was then dumped by a local contractor at as many as 12 sites in and around the city of Abidjan in August 2006. Gas caused by release of chemicals is blamed by UN and government of Côte d'Ivoire for deaths of 17 and injury of over 30,000 Ivorians, with injuries that ranged from mild headaches to severe burns of skin and lungs. Almost 100,000 Ivorians sought medical attention for the effects of these chemicals.

Forest Governance Learning Group

• Justice in the Forests: Tackling Forest Governance - How Small Groups Can Have a Big Impact

• Justice in the Forests: Malawi - Burning Issues, the Problem of Charcoal

Livestock, life and livelihoods among women and men in East Africa

• This film provides an overview of the contribution of livestock to livelihoods in rural communities, particularly for women. Stories from Ethiopia and Kenya show how poor men and women use and accumulate livestock to pull themselves out of poverty and food insecurity.