Desertification Still A Problem in Africa
6/18/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Desertification Still A Problem in Africa
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 6/18/98
Byline: Judith Achieng'
NAIROBI, Jun 18 (IPS) - Among the Luo people of western Kenya, the
planting of trees by women is considered taboo. And, in the arid north
eastern province, pastoralists still roam from place to place with
large numbers of livestock, destroying the land.
Desertification still persists in East Africa, despite projects and
strategies to combat it, because of these and other traditional
practices and taboos which promote drought, says Ager Onyango, an
agro-forestry expert.
In one community after distributing tree seedlings, ''we were summoned
by the chief who told us that the people could not plant that kind of
tree, because it would bring evil to the community,'' Onyango recalls.
Combatting desertification, especially in Africa, is still one of the
major environmental challenges almost a quarter of a century after it
was identified as one of the world's most salient environmental
issues.
And, beyond the global agenda set for the year 2000, there is little
sign of future action plans to avert the threat desertification poses
to the millions of people living in dryland areas.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the
extent of land degradation has spread over more than 3.6 billion
hectares of land -- about a quarter of the earth's total land surface
-- affecting the livelihood of one billion people.
''The worst affected continent is Asia, while in Africa, 73 percent of
the 1,433 billion hectares in the drylands show signs of
desertification,'' UNEP's officer in charge of desertification
control, Till Darnhoefer, told journalists in the Kenyan capital this
week. Jun. 17 marked celebrations of the 'World's Day to Combat
Desertification'.
Despite the threat of land degradation to food security, Darnhoefer
pointed out that although many governments are signatories to a number
of world treaties on desertification, including the UN Convention to
Combat Desertification which came into force in 1996, countries have
little to show that they are committed to what has
been signed.
''Knowledge and technical skills to halt dryland degradation are
available, however, it is political and economic factors, not
scientific research, that will determine whether or not the overall
objective of combatting degradation and mitigating the effects of
drought will be achieved,'' Darnhoefer said.
Desertification has created the new phenonmenon of environmental
refugees -- people who migrate from their rural areas to the city,
because the land no longer yields fruit.
''The hardships suffered by the millions of those who decide to leave
their impoverished surroundings to an even more miserable existence in
an urban setting are the social manifestations of this malaise,'' said
Klaus Toepfer, UNEP's Executive Director in a statement.
In Kenya, for example, 10 million of the East African country's 30
million people live in the arid and semi-arid belt expanse covering 80
percent of the country's 583,000 square kilometres surface.
Darnhoefer said there also is evidence that conflicts in the Horn of
Africa can be attributed to environmental degradation. ''There is
evidence that the civil strife in Somalia (for example) is partly to
blame on drought-related problems,'' he said.
Desertification also carries a high tag of lost income to countries'
economies. Experts estimate the value of income foregone annually, due
to overexploitation of land and drought, at about 42 billion U.S.
Dollars globally, of which 9.3 billion dollars is lost in Africa.
As part of the strategy to combat desertification, the UN Convention,
signed by more than 125 governments, emphasises participation of local
populations, in particular women, in land reclamation activities.
Besides the traditional practices and taboos in Africa that have
slowed down the implementation of strategies to combat
desertification, agro-forestry expert Sam Mbogo blames the problem on
the land tenure system in African countries.
In countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe, where the majority of people
have no title deeds to land, there is reduced forest cover and
increasing soil erosion, since the people do not feel accountable for
how they use the land.
''When people are not given title deeds for their land, they cannot
feel responsible for it, leading therefore to neglect of the land,''
Mbogo said. In Kenya, more than 75 percent of the people in the rural
areas have no title deeds.
There are, however, a number of success stories. For example, the
Sonnleited Ranch Project in central Namibia, in Southern Africa, has
developed an intergrated system of land management through the use of
small paddocks and soil erosion control.
And in dry, northern Senegal, local people, particularly girls and
women, have been educated and are involved in land conservation
activities.