Major Environmental Concerns  

[ Land | Forest | Biodiversity | Water | Marine & Coastal Environments | Urban & Industrial Environments ]

Underlying Causes

[ Social | Economic | Institutional | Environmental ]

Africa offers a wide spectrum of habitats and ecosystems. Biological diversity varies in complex ways, depending on local moisture regimes, topography, vegetation, and soil type. Countries such as Zaire , which has large areas of land in the humid tropics, and South Africa , Kenya , and Tanzania -with impressively variable landscapes-are famous for their high species diversity and impressive wildlife populations. Some island States in the Indian Ocean are rich in endemic species (UNEP, 1994).

Savannahs (consisting of savannah woodland, tree savannah, shrub savannah, and grass savannah) are the most extensive ecosystem in Africa and provide a home for the majority of humans, livestock, and wildlife. They are the richest grassland regions in the world, with a high incidence of indigenous plants and animals and the world's greatest concentration of large mammals, particularly in northern Tanzania (WCMC, 1992).

Various kinds of human activities are harming biodiversity in terms of habitat loss and degradation, resulting in, for example, loss of medicinal and aromatic plants of high value. Cultivation is perhaps the most significant cause of damage to ecosystems, involving large land areas and alteration of the landscape. The savannah was also greatly enlarged (usually at the cost of forests) through burning to improve grazing for livestock and to facilitate wild game hunting, forest clearance, and massive increases in the number of cattle (WCMC, 1992).

The margins of the seas are affected by humans almost everywhere. Habitats are being lost forever to the construction of harbours and industrial installations, the development of tourist facilities and mariculture, and the growth of settlements and cities. Increasing coastal erosion as well as pollution is also evident.

The adverse effects of poverty on biological resources are compounded by exploitation by a small but influential and affluent segment of the African population and by commercial firms hastening to satisfy market demands that often originate in other regions (UNEP, 1994).

African countries have taken steps over the years to conserve their biodiversity in its various forms. Protected areas have been established, for example, although they do not cover the full spectrum of biodiversity in the major ecosystems. The continent has 727 protected terrestrial areas (approximately 5 per cent of the total land area) and 112 protected marine areas (WRI/UNEP/ UNDP/WB, 1996).

A few countries (in particular, Kenya , Zimbabwe , and South Africa ) have used one aspect of biodiversity-wildlife-for tourism development. Although Africa's biodiversity generates considerable revenue, both for Governments and businesses as well as for industrial countries' commercial interests, more equitable distribution of these revenues to landowners adjacent to protected areas is needed to ensure the full and effective participation of local populations in the tasks of conservation and sustainable use of biological resources (UNDP/FAO, 1980; Makombe, 1993).

United Nations Environment Programme