Namibia - CountryWatch

Global Environmental Snapshot Environmental Overview
Although Latin America is one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world, this biodiversity
is highly threatened, as exemplified by the projected extinction of up to 100,000 species in the next
few decades. Much of this loss will be concentrated in the Amazon area, although the western coastline
of South America will also suffer significant depletion of biological diversity. The inventory of
rainforest species with potentially useful commercial or medical applications is incomplete, but presumed
to include significant numbers of such species that may become extinct before they are discovered
and identified.
Up to 50 percent of the region's grazing land has lost its soil fertility as a result of soil erosion, salinization,
alkalinization and overgrazing.
The Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean have all been contaminated by agricultural
wastes, which are discharged into streams that flow into these major waters. Water pollution
derived from phosphorous, nitrates and pesticides adversely affects fish stocks, contributes to oxygen
depletion and fosters overgrowth of aquatic vegetation. Marine life will continue to be severely compromised
as a result of these conditions.
Due to industrial development in the region, many beaches of eastern Latin America and the Caribbean
suffer from tar deposits.
Most cities in the region lack adequate sewage treatment facilities, and rapid migration of the rural
poor into the cities is widening the gap between current infrastructure capacity and the much greater
level needed to provide satisfactory basic services.
The rainforest region of the Amazon Basin suffers from dangerously high levels of deforestation,
which may be a significant contributory factor to global warming or "the greenhouse effect." In the late
1990s and into the new millennium, the rate of deforestation was around 20 million acres of rainforest
being destroyed annually.
Deforestation on the steep rainforest slopes of Caribbean islands contributes to soil erosion and landslides,
both of which then result in heavy sedimentation of nearby river systems. When these sedimented
rivers drain into the sea and coral reefs, they poison the coral tissues, which are vital to the
maintenance of the reef ecosystem. The result is marine degradation and nutrient depletion. Jamaica's
coral reefs have never quite recovered from the effects of marine degradation.
The Southern Cone of Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) suffers the
effects of greatly increased ultraviolet-B radiation, as a consequence of more intense ozone depletion
in the southern hemisphere.
Water resource vulnerability is an increasingly major concern in the northwestern portion of South
America.
189 Namibia Review 2013