BACKGROUND OVERVIEW OF AFRICA’S SHARE OF GLOBAL DRY LAND

The Gambia Government Has Attached Great Important To Tree Planting As The Only Way To Save The Mankind.                                                    

Tree planting competition organises by President Jammeh among schools and communites annually with prizes
Drylands (arid, semi arid and hyper-arid areas in which annual evapotranspiration exceeds

rainfall and in which agricultural productivity is limited by poor availability of moisture)

occur throughout the world. They comprise not less than 40% of the global surface landmass

(6.4 billion ha) and are found in about 100 countries the world over. They are home to about

1.2 billion people and 350 000 plant species, of which 3000 are known to be useful to

mankind.

In Africa, drylands cover 1.96 billion ha in 25 countries (65% of continental landmass). More

than 30% of the world’s drylands are found in Africa. Nearly 400 million Africans live in the

arid and semiarid lands of the continent.

With the dryland population increasing at the rate of

3% a year, the natural resources of Africa’s drylands must feed an additional 12 million

people every year; this is despite degradation of the dryland natural resource base.

In Western and Eastern Africa, the arid and semiarid lands (ASALs) occupy significant

landmasses: 18% The Gambia, 65% Mali, 35%Senegal, 90%Mauritania, 70%Niger ,50%Burkina Fasso, and 40% Nigeria,75% of Kenya, 50% of Ethiopia and Tanzania, 80% of Somalia ,30% of Uganda and 20% of

Rwanda.
The total dryland area in Eastern Africa is 5 083 000 km2 (i.e. 81% of the total

surface area); in West Africa, the figure is 3,986 000 km2.(74%  of the total land masses) 

In addition, the Sahel and horn of Africa population

is typically impoverished, with well over half of ASAL population living below the poverty

line. The prevailing production systems are pure pastoralism, agropastoralism and irrigated

agriculture.

THE PHOTO SHOWS HOW  SEMI ARID OR SAHEL COUNTRIES LOOK LIKE AND ONLY TREE PLANTING  EXERCISE CAN SLOVE THE PROBLEM.

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Agenda 21, the blueprint for action into the 21st century adopted by world leaders meeting at

the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, where the  former Gambian president Sir Dawda Jawara identifies agroforestry as one way of rehabilitating the degraded drylands of the world.

The present Gambian leader Yahya AJJ Jammeh have further embarked on more initiative towards fighting issues affecting environment and climate change and agroforestry is one of several approaches for improving land use, is also
frequently invoked as an answer to shortages of fuelwood, cash income, animal fodder and building materials in sub-Saharan Africa (Rocheleau et al. 1988.

Environmental problems in the drylands of West Africa: a

diagnosis.

The spiral of environmental degradation facing WestAfrica (WA) drylands is mainly

anthropogenic in nature and origin. However, for convenience, the causes of degradation can

be classified into demographic failure (phenomenal population growth caused by advances in

medical sciences); information failure; market failure (with respect to mainly the livestock

economy); institutional failure (very weak/moribund institutional environment); and

educational failure.

Land degradation and desertification

Desertification can be defined as land degradation in arid, semiarid and dry sub-humid areas

resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities [UN

definition]. Land degradation, on the other hand, can be defined as “the aggregate diminution

of the productive potential of the land, including its major uses (rainfed, arable, irrigated,

rangeland, forest), its farming systems (e.g. small holder subsistence) and its value as

economic resource” (Stocking and Murnaghan 2001). However, the two meanings may be

used interchangeably.

There are two main culprits in the desertification debate: human factors and climatic

influences. Climate variability and climate change has been identified as the natural factors

that have contributed to the enhanced pace of desertification in the Semi and Sahel regions of West Africa. Rainfall is variable in both time and space, leading to droughts and famines .
Droughts, which may bedefined as persistent below-normal precipitation that lead to mass exodus of people ,

herds, forcing pastoralists to migrate to relatively better-watered areas.

In the process,

overgrazing of the meagre remaining vegetation cover takes place, resulting in even more

land degradation. In the areas where the herds are now concentrated, new forms of land

degradation take place, especially around watercourses and water bodies such as rivers,

boreholes, water pans, etc.

The photo shows normadic or pastoral families moving to areas where they can find water bodies and pastures for their animals.

Temperature, as an element of climate, also contributes to land

degradation through its attribute of variability and occasionally by its extreme values. The

impact of temperature is exacerbated by the influence of global warming. Drylands are

important ‘carbon sinks’, and land degradation and desertification may be contributing to

increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. These emissions are

attributable to soil disturbances, fires/burning for range regeneration, land-use changes,

biomass degradation e.g. by enhancing soil microbial activities as well as usage of tree

resources for meeting energy requirements/needs. Global warming may affect water balance

in drylands, reducing moisture availability for plant growth and development.

The photo shows the effect of global warming and only the tree planting can save mankind natural calamities.


Wind is

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another important culprit of land degradation and desertification. It is a powerful adjunct to

human activities, more so when removal of woody and herbaceous cover/biomass has been

effected. It is very apparent in areas with loose surface soils or previously eroded soils. The

WA drylands are particularly prone to the violent khamsin winds, which result in soil erosion

on a large scale.

However, land degradation owing to natural factors is usually in tandem with the regenerative

capacities of the land. Visible degradation usually occurs when negative human activities

become supplemental to the natural factors. This usually results in accelerated pace of land

degradation, resulting in desertification at the extreme end. Oftentimes, irreversible land

degradation occurs; other times, it can only be reversible through massive infusion/injection

of capital and labour. The human activities include overgrazing, over-cultivation, inefficient

irrigation systems that do not correspond with soil water requirements and deforestation as

well as industrial pollution [on a limited scale]. Other drivers of land degradation are

population increases (including enhanced in-migration).

The combined effect of human and climatic factors of land degradation has been a reduction

in the production of arid and semiarid lands in addition to the reduction in the quality of the

environment due to biophysical loss of resources.

Increasing human population

There has been phenomenal growth in the number of people living in EA drylands. This

growth is attributable to both advances in medical sciences as well as significant in-migration

into drylands from higher potential land due to over-stretching of the agricultural and land

resources in those areas. The increased population occurs within the context of static or even

contracting natural resource base.

Seeking the all-important fuelwood: an increasing human population eking out livelihood on a

contracting natural resource base.

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Increased conversion of dry-season grazing reserves into other

land uses

There has been a recent trend towards conversion of traditional dry-season grazing reserves

into other land uses. For instance, some dry-season grazing areas of the Maasai and the Boran

have been expropriated by the State in Kenya as protected land (national parks and game

reserves). The result is the inability of the pastoralists and their herds to access these sites,

which are especially important during the dry seasons. Additionally, there have also been

localized land-use changes: farmers have occupied a major livestock migratory corridor along

the Tana transect in Garissa District, Kenya, denying access to the river for herdsmen and

sometimes causing violent conflicts.

A goat browsing a tree (left). The area is degraded, and there is sparse groundcover. Multiple-use trees

such as Baobab (right) may be the panacea to this kind of degradation.

Increased land privatization

In some parts of the eastern Africa region, such as Kenya and Tanzania, land adjudication has

been carried out in some parts of the drylands. This process has been well advanced in the

higher potential rangelands, shutting out the drier parts. The primary motive for this move

towards individualization of land ownership was to give incentives for natural resource

conservation. However, this has resulted in unforeseen problems. Firstly, this policy has

meant that pressure could be taken off the arable parts of the drylands, where population

growth had been phenomenal, so that landless farmers from the arable areas could venture

into marginal areas, where hitherto insignificant farming was taking place. The result has

been reduced returns on agricultural investment for the marginal farmers and environmental

problems in the farmed areas. Secondly, the land adjudication process has been followed by

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