Environmental issues in Senegal

Senegal's environmental issues are varied. According to the CIA world factbook pressing problems exist with: diminishing wildlife populations which are threatened by poaching, deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification, and overfishing.[1]

Climate change
This section is an excerpt from Climate change in Senegal[edit]

Climate change in Senegal will have wide reaching impacts on the country. Senegal was not a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, contributing only 6/10ths of one ton of CO2 per capita -- or is 150th in the list of most emitting countries.[2]

Climate change has the potential to increase land degradation and exacerbate other environmental issues such as deforestation. Extreme drought and coastal erosion is expected to create food insecurity and other health concerns for a large portion of the population, where 70% of the population is employed in the agricultural industry.

Deforestation and land degradation

Like other parts of West Africa and the developing world, social forces and policies are leading to deforestation and ecosystem degradation, leading to effects like Desertification and social erosion. Charcoal production,[3] alongside pressure to expand agriculture in Senegal to meet the quadrupling of population has led to increased loss of forest.[4]

In 2006, Senegal still had 45.1% —or about 8,673,000 hectares—of forest with 18.4% — or roughly 1,598,000 hectares — classified as primary forest.[5] In 2007 Senegal was losing 350,000 hectares of forest per year through slash-and-burn for farming because of its rapidly growing population.[4] Variability of rainfall compounded with issues like climate change, lead About 13% of the land - holding about 22% of the population - are now considered degraded.[6]

In 2016, the government warned that the Casamance forest cover would have vanished by 2018, if illegal logging continued.[7]

Mitigation

Since 1970s Senegal has lost 25% of its mangrove forests.[8] Recent efforts have been led by the organization Oceanium to replant the mangroves.[8]

The national Forest Service designed in the early 2000s was designed to democratize and decentralize forest management.[9] However, subsequent analysis by academics found that inequalities favor commercial interests and exploitation by economic forces.[10]

Overfishing
Further information: West Africa § Overfishing

West African communities face pressure from both overfishing by local fleets as well as Asian and European fleets harvesting from fisheries in West Africa as other fisheries become overfished or collapse.[11] For example fleets in 2017 Saint-Louis, Senegal have seen a large decline in harvest, causing ripple effects on nutrition and food supply in the country, where 75% of animal protein comes from fish.[11]

See also
  • Institute, World Resources. "Senegal". Global Forest Watch. Retrieved 2018-03-15.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

References
  1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/fields/2032.html#sg
  2. Judt, Daniel (2019-09-24). "In Senegal, Climate Change Is Robbing Thousands of Their Homes". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  3. Bensch, Gunther; Peters, Jörg (2013-11-01). "Alleviating Deforestation Pressures? Impacts of Improved Stove Dissemination on Charcoal Consumption in Urban Senegal". Land Economics. 89 (4): 676–698. doi:10.3368/le.89.4.676. ISSN 0023-7639.
  4. "ENVIRONMENT-SENEGAL: An Ongoing Battle Against Deforestation". Inter Press Service. 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2018-03-15. Where does a four-fold increase in a country’s population over half a century make itself felt most acutely? Concerning Senegal, the answer to this might well be: in the forests. At the time of independence in 1960, the West African country was home to three million people. By 1976, the figure had increased to seven million, while in July 2006 it stood at some 11.9 million. This quadrupling of the population in 47 years has led to an increase in the amount of land under cultivation, rising demand for firewood and charcoal, and accelerated urbanisation. The result: Senegal loses about 350,000 hectares of its forests annually to fires that are frequently started to clear land for farming, and more than 80,000 hectares for agricultural needs, according to the Centre for Environmental Preservation (Centre pour la sauvegarde de l’environnement, CSE).
  5. "Forest data: Senegal Deforestation Rates and Related Forestry Figures". Rainforests. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  6. "Déforestation: Le Sénégal perd chaque année 40 000 hectares soit 2,1 % du PIB". SeneNews.com (in French). 2016-05-24. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  7. AfricaNews (2016-06-19). "Senegal govt warns against Casamance deforestation". Africanews. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  8. "Senegal is planting millions of mangrove trees to fight deforestation". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  9. "National forest programmes". www.fao.org. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  10. Sikor, Thomas; Stahl, Johannes (2012-05-23). Forests and People: Property, Governance, and Human Rights. Routledge. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-136-34284-4.
  11. Edwards, Meaghan Beatley and Sam (2018-05-31). "Overfished: In Senegal, empty nets lead to hunger and violence". Public Radio International. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.