Environmental issues in Africa
The large scale felling of trees and the resulting decreases in forest areas are the main environmental issues of the African Continent.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, deforestation is primarily caused by the needs of the poor citizens, along with unsupervised logging and mining.
In Ethiopia, the main cause is the country's growing population, which induces an increase in agriculture, livestock production, and fuel wood.
In 2005, Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
Deforestation in Madagascar has also led to desertification, soil loss, and water source degradation, resulting in the country's inability to provide necessary resources for its growing population.
Ethiopia's government, along with organizations like Farm Africa, is starting to take steps to stop excessive deforestation.
Deforestation is an issue, and forests are important in Africa, as populations have relied heavily on them to provide basic needs.
Access to information collected is freely available, and it is hoped that awareness will be raised among politicians in threatened areas.
[17] Also, due to the poor supply of power, most homes have to rely on fuel and diesel in generators to keep their electricity running.
According to the report, sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a fast increasing pollution, derived from many causes, such as burning wood for cooking, open burning of waste, traffic, agri-food and chemical industries, the dust from the Sahara carried by the winds through the Sahel area, all this reinforced by a greater population growth and urbanisation.
[23] The World Health Organization reports of the need to intervene when more than one third of the total Disability Adjusted Life Years [24] was lost as a result of exposure to indoor air pollution in Africa.
The rise in vehicle emissions and the trend towards greater industrialization means the urban air quality in the continent is worsening.
[31] In 2019, air pollution killed 1.1 million people across Africa, according to a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in October 2021.
[32] More than 350 million African children live in households that use solid fuels, mostly wood and coal, for cooking and heating.
[35] Over the coming decades, warming from climate change is expected across almost all the Earth's surface, and global mean rainfall will increase.
This is due to home construction materials, lack of ventilation, sparse green space, and poor access to electrical power and other services.
[48] Coastal erosion is a notable environmental issue in many regions of Africa, particularly along the West African coast.
To address these problems, the West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA) was initiated in 2018, with funding of $594 million from the World Bank through the International Development Association (IDA).
WACA has supported about twenty major cross-border infrastructure projects, covering over 42 kilometers with breakwaters, groins, and sand walls.
[53] The program has safeguarded the lives and livelihoods of 27,000 households (about 145,000 individuals) from flooding, and has improved recreational spaces and artisanal fishing.
[55] The rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa is highly seasonal and unevenly distributed, leading to frequent floods and droughts.
The Niger Delta region has solely experienced more than 12,000 oil spill occurrences, half of them were the consequences of tanker accidents and pipeline degradation.
[59] The spill incidents caused poisoning in the waterways, lands, and upended farmers’ livelihood from agriculture as well as affected citizens’ lives.
The two largest companies in the Niger Delta, Shell and Eni, were accused by Amnesty International of being careless in their handling of regional oil disasters.
The campaign group said that the businesses' "irresponsible response" to oil spills was the reason why the environmental calamity in the Niger Delta had gotten worse.
[62] Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands rank among the most vulnerable regions of Africa, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
