Environmental Problems in Africa

Essay by onelove72University, Bachelor'sB+, March 2009

download word file, 8 pages 5.0

The environmental problems seem to be key challenges of the XXI century. In the previous years the world politics and every person in general was occupied with politics and wars. But with the development of new technologies, with the increasing number of plants and factories all kind of manufacturing in general, a huge shift was made towards the environmental issues. The terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments have declined in virtually all aspects. New developments in industry and manufacturing were root causes of environmental degradation over the past three decades. The rapid growth of population, urbanization and globalization are the driving force of the environmental problems. However, the challenge is extremely high not only for the well-developed regions, but in poor parts of the world as well. Such environmental problems as land degradation, deforestation, declining of marine resources and water scarcity of deteriorating of water and air quality are on the priority list in Africa.

Despite, Africa possesses wealthy natural resources many Africans live in poverty unable to benefit from the African wealth because of uneven distribution across the continent and partly because of African complicated history over the past 50 years after the decolonization.

Africa has a vast majority of poor states and regions, and poverty is a major reason and consequence of the environmental degradation. The present paper ascertains the small research on the environmental issues in Africa. In the work I will analyze one Africa region, demonstrating its problems in the environment. At the end I will point out the root cause of these problems and suggest possible ways out, if there are any.

In general a vast majority of countries in Africa depend more on their natural resource base for economic and social needs than any other region in the world. Thus, two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africa's people...