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Environmental issues in Senegal

Summary

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 edit

 
Economic impact of 2°C in Senegal

Climate change in Senegal will have wide reaching impacts on many aspects of life in Senegal. Climate change will cause an increase in average temperatures over west Africa by between 1.5 and 4 °C (3 °F and 7 °F) by mid-century, relative to 1986–2005.[2] Projections of rainfall indicate an overall decrease in rainfall and an increase in intense mega-storm events over the Sahel.[3][4] The sea level is expected to rise faster in West Africa than the global average.[5][6] Although Senegal is currently not a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, it is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change.[7][8]

Extreme drought is impacting agriculture, and causing food and job insecurity. More than 70% of the population is employed in the agricultural sector. Sea level rise and resulting coastal erosion is expected to cause damage to coastal infrastructure and displace a large percentage of the population living in coastal areas. Climate change also has the potential to increase land degradation that will likely increase desertification in eastern Senegal, leading to an expansion of the Sahara.[9]

Climate change adaptation policies and plans are important to help Senegal prepare and adapt. In 2006, Senegal submitted its National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.[10] The NAPA identifies water resources, agriculture, and coastal zones as the country's most vulnerable sectors.[11] In 2015, Senegal released its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's) that indicated climate change would be treated as a national priority.[11]

Deforestation and land degradation edit

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,[12] alongside pressure to expand agriculture in Senegal to meet the quadrupling of population has led to increased loss of forest.[13]

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.[14] In 2007 Senegal was losing 350,000 hectares of forest per year through slash-and-burn for farming because of its rapidly growing population.[13] 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.[15] Senegal had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.11/10, ranking it 56th globally out of 172 countries.[16]

In 2016, the government warned that the Casamance forest cover would have vanished by 2018, if illegal logging continued.[17]

Mitigation edit

Since 1970s Senegal has lost 25% of its mangrove forests.[18] Recent efforts have been led by the organization Oceanium to replant the mangroves.[18]

The national Forest Service designed in the early 2000s was designed to democratize and decentralize forest management.[19] However, subsequent analysis by academics found that inequalities favor commercial interests and exploitation by economic forces.[20]

Overfishing edit

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.[21] 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.[21]

See also edit

External links edit

  • Institute, World Resources. "Senegal". Global Forest Watch. Archived from the original on 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2018-03-15.

References edit

  1. ^ "The World Factbook". www.cia.gov. Archived from the original on 2015-04-04.
  2. ^ Niang, I; Ruppel, O.C; Abdrabo, M.A; Essel, A; Lennard, C; Padgham, J; Urquhart, P (2014). Africa. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1199–1265.
  3. ^ Berthou, S.; Kendon, E. J.; Rowell, D. P.; Roberts, M. J.; Tucker, S.; Stratton, R. A. (2019). "Larger Future Intensification of Rainfall in the West African Sahel in a Convection-Permitting Model". Geophysical Research Letters. 46 (22): 13299–13307. Bibcode:2019GeoRL..4613299B. doi:10.1029/2019GL083544. ISSN 1944-8007.
  4. ^ Klein, Cornelia; Taylor, Christopher M. (2020-09-01). "Dry soils can intensify mesoscale convective systems". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117 (35): 21132–21137. doi:10.1073/pnas.2007998117. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 7474668. PMID 32817526.
  5. ^ "Sea-Level Rise: West Africa Is Sinking". Earth.Org - Past | Present | Future. 2019-09-24. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
  6. ^ Croitoru, Lelia; Miranda, Juan José; Sarraf, Maria (2019-03-13). The Cost of Coastal Zone Degradation in West Africa. World Bank, Washington, DC. doi:10.1596/31428. hdl:10986/31428.
  7. ^ Judt, Daniel (2019-09-24). "In Senegal, Climate Change Is Robbing Thousands of Their Homes". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  8. ^ team, FPFIS (2018-11-22). "Fossil CO
    2     emissions of all world countries - 2018 Report". EU Science Hub - European Commission. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
  9. ^ "Senegal | UNDP Climate Change Adaptation". www.adaptation-undp.org. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  10. ^ "National Adaptation Plans in focus: Lessons from Senegal | UNDP Climate Change Adaptation". www.adaptation-undp.org. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  11. ^ a b "Review of Current and Planned Adaptation Action in Senegal". International Institute for Sustainable Development. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
  12. ^ 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. S2CID 153981110.
  13. ^ a b "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).
  14. ^ "Forest data: Senegal Deforestation Rates and Related Forestry Figures". Rainforests. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  15. ^ "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.
  16. ^ Grantham, H. S.; Duncan, A.; Evans, T. D.; Jones, K. R.; Beyer, H. L.; Schuster, R.; Walston, J.; Ray, J. C.; Robinson, J. G.; Callow, M.; Clements, T.; Costa, H. M.; DeGemmis, A.; Elsen, P. R.; Ervin, J.; Franco, P.; Goldman, E.; Goetz, S.; Hansen, A.; Hofsvang, E.; Jantz, P.; Jupiter, S.; Kang, A.; Langhammer, P.; Laurance, W. F.; Lieberman, S.; Linkie, M.; Malhi, Y.; Maxwell, S.; Mendez, M.; Mittermeier, R.; Murray, N. J.; Possingham, H.; Radachowsky, J.; Saatchi, S.; Samper, C.; Silverman, J.; Shapiro, A.; Strassburg, B.; Stevens, T.; Stokes, E.; Taylor, R.; Tear, T.; Tizard, R.; Venter, O.; Visconti, P.; Wang, S.; Watson, J. E. M. (2020). "Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity - Supplementary Material". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 5978. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19493-3. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 7723057. PMID 33293507.
  17. ^ AfricaNews (2016-06-19). "Senegal govt warns against Casamance deforestation". Africanews. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
  18. ^ a b "Senegal is planting millions of mangrove trees to fight deforestation". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  19. ^ "National forest programmes". www.fao.org. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  20. ^ Sikor, Thomas; Stahl, Johannes (2012-05-23). Forests and People: Property, Governance, and Human Rights. Routledge. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-136-34284-4.
  21. ^ a b 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.

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