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dam-l Desertification threatens Africa.
The following is from the BBC web site. A sidebar stated that 73% of
Africa's drylands have been desertified.
Monday, November 30, 1998 Published at 14:39 GMT
World: Africa
Fighting back the widening deserts
UN says desertification is a global, not only sub-Saharan
problem
About 2,000 delegates from 190 countries and hundreds of
environmental organisations have gathered in the Senegalese
capital, Dakar, for an international conference on the
spread of
deserts.
The UN-sponsored conference - said to be the biggest
environment
meeting ever held in Africa - will try to reach a
consensus on how to
combat desertification, so that countries can get international
financial backing to their efforts.
Figures released before the
conference show that the
phenomenon costs about $42bn a
year and has serious social and
economic consequences in the
affected zones.
"Developed countries are spending
billions to cut the effects of
greenhouse gases," says Hama
Armba Diallo, the executive
secretary of the UN Convention to
Combat Desertification and Drought
"We must show them that
desertification is a global
environmental problem and that if
they don't do something,
they'll feel
the consequences themselves," he
says.
The organisers say a large part of international funds for
fighting
environmental problems is given over to issues such as climate
change and water management, at the expense of the
desertification
question.
Mostly man-made problem
Desertification reduces the land's resilience to natural
climate
variability.
Soil becomes less productive, as
topsoil is blown away by the wind or
washed away by the rainstorms.
Vegetation is damaged.
Drought is part of the cause, but
essentially desertification is a
man-made problem.
It arises from placing too much
pressure on the land, often because
of overgrazing.
Many environmentalists also blame
the phenomenon on the destruction
of forests for short-term gain.
The Dakar conference will also
address the link between El Nino
phenomenon and desertification and drought.
Billion people at risk
The organisers of the conference estimate that the spread
of barren
land has an impact on 250 million people, and could eventually
threaten a billion people.
In North America, 74% of the dryland is already "seriously or
moderately" affected by desertification.
Africa is a close second at risk, with 73% of the dryland
damaged.
In the immediate sub-Saharan Sahel region, experts put the
death
rate from the related impact on living conditions at
200,000 people
per year.
Desertification has also hit Asian and Pacific nations, as
well as
Europe, notably Italy and Spain.
Developed countries as a whole - and more favoured areas of
developing countries - are also being affected indirectly
as people
migrate to them after being unable to live off their
degraded land.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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