Table of Contents
Introduction
The Environment is everything around us, be it living or not-living. It includes everything we rely on in our daily lives and it supports us and more of like important elements we can’t do without and are essential for our living. For example air, water, and soil.
Our environment is progressively becoming worse day by day and the primary cause is a human disturbance. Harm is caused directly and indirectly, knowingly and unknowingly by humans. In this rapid growing world, the population is increasing vastly with that the need for space increases so one of the acts like deforestation takes place to create space and farming to produce food needed to feed the population but together with that there is also the rapid growth in urbanization and economy, increase in energy use and transportation. Deforestation- is the cutting down of the trees due to this activity there is the loss of biodiversity, animals have to look for a new home to live. Trees absorb carbon dioxide but the lack of them would lead to less carbon dioxide been absorbed and this contributes to global warming causing climate change since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
What is Environmental Degradation?
Environment degradation is a process through which the quality of the natural environment becomes worse which results to depletion of the natural resources such air, water, soil and it also leads to disturbance in the surrounding environment that is the destruction of the ecosystem, loss of biodiversity, extinction of animals and pollution. It consists of a variety of environmental related issues that include pollution, global warming, natural resource depletion, waste disposal, deforestation and many more.
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A few of the factors that contribute to this environmental issues are Urbanization, economic growth, population growth, increase in energy and transportation.
Degradation, as a result, affects the living in the environment. To cope with this and to prevent further harm to the environment there have to be measures taken to reduce the impact, to live sustainably, and environment conservation (It is a practice to protect the natural environment).
In this paper, the impacts of politics and environmental degradation, and conservation in the African region are discussed. The first country is to be discussed is Somalia and the environmental issue is deforestation and dumping of waste in the country and secondly Sudan, a country that was a war zone and environmental degradation due to the conflicts.
Somalia
Somalia is located on the horn of Africa and “This country suffers from almost all the environment degradations. In one hand, Somalia is experiencing enormous environmental problems, while on the other hand, it is lacking both human and financial resources as well as political stability to address these life-affecting issues”.
Deforestation
It is the cutting down of trees for various uses; products to be formed from the wood. Charcoal is one of the main sources got from the trees and it has resulted in deforestation which results in other environmental issues like desertification, global warming resulting in climate change, and loss of biodiversity.
In this country, for the past few years, there has been felling of trees to produce charcoal which is used in business purpose to earn millions of money. “Cutting of trees to produce charcoal for export to the Gulf States has become a big business with considerable profits”. The fact that the species of tree for charcoal is dominant encouraging deforestation.
The impact of politics and economy come into factor now. After the collapse in the state in 1991, there has been political instability and there has been no central government in charge to protect the environment. If there is no government, there won’t be rules and regulations. This would encourage the dominant public among the population to take over and own the natural resources illegally and misuse for self-benefit for example selling of the charcoal to earn millions. This not only encouraged the local population but also outsiders. “The lack of a functional system of government and control facilitated these individuals to run these unstainable business activities damaging the local natural environment. Lack of government in Somalia could, therefore, be seen as the major cause of the ongoing deforestation”.
Illegal waste dumping
Whenever something reacts or is made, it’s for the purpose to obtain a product but the product produced could be useful otherwise it would be a waste, so it has to be disposed of, that is to get rid of it. “Taking advantage of political instability and high level of corruption but lured by the potential financial gains, poor African nations have been used as dumping sites for hazardous toxic waste materials from developed countries”.
Yes, you read it right a country just like any is used as a dumping site and most cases poverty is the reason such acts are accepted and actually take place. Somalia is one of them that was used as a dumping site and the impact of political and economy comes into factor. Due to the country’s political instability, it attracted the waste-dealers since there was no government in charge. Another reason could be the site for dumping in exchange for an enormous amount of money in return.
International and regional laws regulated waste transport
The Basel Convention and Organization of African Unity (OUA) ban on waste transport- took into factor to place legislation to prevent the act of waste disposal in the country. Deforestation and dumping of waste cause environmental issue affecting the surrounding, the population, and polluting the environment which is environmental degradation.
Sudan
This country faced many issues due to the war between the northern part and southern part of the country and resulted to issues in the economy, and any warzone environment ends up affecting the population of the country, and the environment too. Its major environmental issues include soil erosion, land degradation, deforestation, and desertification. UNEP’s findings are used as a basis to discuss the environmental issues faced by the country.
Deforestation
Felling of trees in order to obtain hardwood timber to be sold to earn revenue helped in the civil war. “Timber became part of the war economy, and there are now signs that this process is being repeated with charcoal in Darfur”. The impact of the economy comes into factor.
The other causes of deforestation are the growth in population and pressure inland for buildings, commercial logging for firewood, charcoal, and building materials. Clearance of the land results to loss of biodiversity, and if poor agriculture is practiced results to desertification, soil erosion affecting the farmers too.
Rangeland and rain-fed agriculture land
There are local conflicts over the rangeland and rain-fed agriculture land in Sudan. As a result, the environmental issues caused are desertification, land degradation and climate change becoming factors affecting these conflicts. The conflicts are between three groups that are the “pastoralists, agriculturalists, and mechanized farming lobby”. Since agriculture is the main activity that takes place in the country that conflict is related to that. They fight for land and water in order to survive.
Warzone areas always lack a central government and there is a limited observance to the rule of law and this acts as an impact to environment degradation.
There are international recommendations that are possible measures to reduce the impact on the environment which include – “agriculture policy reform, developing the timber industry, and strengthening environmental governance”.
Conclusion
Environment degradation has been one of the major dangers may be a developing concern to everybody. We are the generation where it has gotten to be more regrettable and so we are the ones who can actually make a contrast. As said prior one of the nations that are Somalia which was utilized as a dumping location, falls apart the environment since firstly it causes contamination, it seems to lead to illnesses among the populace but it had to acknowledge this cause of no control by a government so in brief intentionally or unwittingly impacts are confronted and the circumstance gets to be helpless.
Depending on the harm, it can time for recovery; but everything takes time. In arrange to decrease the impacts and to anticipate it within the future, the ones causing the effect ought to take obligation and consider reimbursing back to the environment since it doesn’t owe us anything. On the off chance that activity is taken before long sufficient, it’s still not that late to bring the environment back to how it was.
References
- Choudhary, Dr. Mahendra & Singh Chauhan, Govind & Kumar Kushwah, Yogesh. (2015). Environmental Degradation: Causes, Impacts, and Mitigation. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279201881_Environmental_Degradation_Causes_Impacts_and_Mitigation
- Mohamed, A. SOMALIA’S DEGRADING ENVIRONMENT Causes and Effects of Deforestation and Hazardous Waste Dumping in Somalia. Retrieved from http://www.somwe.com/Essay.html
- CONFLICT AND THE ENVIRONMENT (UNEP). (n.d). Retrieved from https://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/sudan/04_conflict.pdf
