African Water Development Report 2006 - United Nations Economic ...

of interdependent factors which advance desertificationat a rate of more than 30 000 ha perannum, mainly in lost lands in the forest belts.One main factor is scarcity of water resourcesdue to climatic changes which lead to decreasingmoisture. This factor has reduced the area’s waterpotential by almost 20 per cent in 30 years, about7 per cent since 1992 (AWDR National Report,2005). Other factors include:(a) Excessive water abstraction, depriving theflora of the quantities which it usually receives;(b) Overgrazing;(c) Erosion of the soils caused by unsuitableagricultural techniques at the slopes andhill sides;(d) Increase in the salinity of soils due to uncontrolledirrigation practices; and(e) Abusive exploitation of forests.Safeguarding Ecosystem Through IntegratedManagement ApproachesAn analysis carried out within the frameworkof the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook(GEO2) report by a group of scientists underthe auspices of UNEP, NASA, USGS, Universityof Maryland, and University of Californiaat Santa Barbara on “Biodiversity-Rich Ecoregionsin Africa Need Protection” (Singh A. et al.,1998) using geographic information system andremote sensing technologies, estimated that 85-90 per cent of all species can be protected by settingaside areas of high biodiversity before theyare further degraded, without having to inventoryspecies individually. According to Singh A.et al., 1998, the geographic analysis of relationshipsbetween protected areas and distribution ofland cover types and population density clearlyrevealed that:(a) This study, based on geographic informationsystem techniques, estimates that approximately7 per cent (2 million sq km) ofthe total land area of Africa is protected;this figure is based on measuring the spatialextent of protected areas provided by theWorld Conservation Monitoring Centre(WCMC);(b) About 6 per cent of the area covered by biodiversity-richtropical evergreen broadleafforests in Africa is protected;(c) In Africa, drier ecoregions have more protectedareas than tropical evergreen broadleafforests. This is contrary to the widelyheld belief that moist habitats, such astropical rain forests, are generally betterprotected than drier zones, such as dry forestsand grasslands;(d) The presence of croplands in legally protectedareas is an indicator that biodiversitycannot easily be preserved in the face of humancompetition for the same land;(e) Lack of protection status and effective implementationof protection measures in the designatedprotected areas seems to pose a seriousthreat to forest biodiversity in Africa.A shift in national and international policy formulationand planning processes, based on targetingbiodiversity-rich areas, is needed in orderto protect biodiversity more effectively in Africa.From the above study, it can be inferred thatthe issue of ecosystem conservation goes farbeyond international conventions since mostAfrican countries are signatories to environmentally-orientedinternational conventions likethe Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),the Ramsar Convention and the InternationalConvention to Combat Desertification (ICCD).African countries urgently need to institute effectivelong-term enforcement measures takinginto consideration the socio-economic factorsassociated with the protection of biodiversity inorder to fully address the causes of encroachmentand subsequent loss of biodiversity. In this direction,an institutional governance frameworkmust be established, involving local stakeholderswho must have a role and economic incentives toconserve biodiversity, and must generally includethe following:(a) An ecosystem approach that involves pro-Protecting Ecosystems in Africa159