PR Newswire
The perilous state of the wetlands of the Sahel is changing the region .
difficult economic conditions resulting from the drying up of the lake .”
The UN humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel region , Toby Lanzer , told a European Union-Africa summit that it was also fuelling migration : “ Asylum seeking , the refugee crisis , the environmental crisis , the instability that extremists sow — all of those issues converge in the Lake Chad basin .”
A Nigerian government audit of the lake basin in 2015 agreed . It concluded that “ uncoordinated upstream water impounding and withdrawal ” were among factors that had “ created high competition for scarce water , resulting into [ sic ] conflicts and forced migration ”. More than 2.6 million people have left the Lake Chad region since mid- 2013 , according to the International Organisation for Migration .
Receding wetlands
At their greatest extent , wetlands cover one-tenth of the Sahel , the arid region stretching for 5 400km across northern Africa , immediately south of the Sahara desert . They are wildlife havens , especially notable for their birdlife . The Inner Niger Delta in Mali , for instance , is one of the world ’ s most important seasonal stops for migrating birds , hosting about four million water birds from Europe each winter . In addition , these wetlands are a source of sustenance for the region ’ s poor and the main sources of the region ’ s economic productivity outside the short , wet season from June to September .
Yet the decline of the wetlands and the resulting social and economic consequences remains a largely untold story . That is partly because dried-up wetlands are routinely , and often incorrectly , blamed on climate change , when the real cause is often more direct human interference in river flows . It is also partly because many development agencies
Fred Pearce
Donkeys on a dried-out section of the Inner Niger Delta in Mali .
36 Water Sewage & Effluent November / December 2017