Atlas shows Africa impacted by war, environmental degradation, population growth
UNEP News Release 2005/27
June 5, 2005
The following is a highlight from the United Nations Environment Programme’s new Atlas, “One Planet Many People Atlas of Our Changing Environment”
The impact of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone on the environment of neighboring Guinea is highlighted in the story of Parrot’s Beak.
In 1974 the area was well forested with the local villages and agricultural areas showing up as patches of light gray in a near continuous sea of green.
The influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees has now led to widespread deforestation as trees are felled for fuel, construction materials and more crops.
This is clearly seen in the latest satellite image from 2002 with the green colour in retreat and a grey landscape advancing in all directions.
The population growth around Lake Victoria, East Africa, is the highest in Africa as a result of the natural resources found there such as fish.
The phenomenon is shown in a series of images from the 1960s to the present with the population rise charted as a rapid spreading area of red zones.
Of the surrounding countries, Kenya seems to have experienced the largest increase in people within 100km of the lake’s shoreline.
The infestation of Lake Victoria by the invasive, alien weed known as water hyacinth is also spotlighted in a satellite image of 1995.
Large swathes of the weed, which can clog water intake pipes, affect shipping and fishing and act as a habitat for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, are clearly visible as green swirls in places like Uganda’s Gobero Bay, Wazimenya Bay and near the port of Kibanga.
However, the recent introduction of natural insect predators appears to be paying off. The latest satellite image of the Ugandan section of the lake shows that it is almost totally hyacinth-free.
Nairobi, Kenya, has undergone dramatic growth since 1979. Its population at independence in 1963 was 350,000. Nairobi is now home to well over three million making it the largest African city between Johannesburg and Cairo.
The growth is clearly depicted in satellite images from 1979 and the present with the city sprawling to the new suburbs and slums north, east and west. The growth of development along the edge of Nairobi National Park and out to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is also underlined.
The publication “One Planet Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment ” can be purchased at Earth Print