Rescuing Africa's Environment

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Credit: Gray Tappan, USGS

"Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment," published by the United Nations Environment Programme, shows that it is possble not only to stem environmental destruction, but to reverse it. Good news from Niger is that there has been a major environmental transformation over the past 30 years. Here, Nigerien ecologist Larwanou Mahamane stands among young winter thorn trees that are thriving in an area of extensive cropland.
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Credit: UNEP

An aerial photograph shows the landscape of south-central Niger in 1975.
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Credit: UNEP

A 2005 satellite image shows evidence of a human and environmental success story at a scale not seen before in the Sahel. At every site scientists examined, they found that sandy fields with few trees were now populated with many more trees.
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Credit: UNEP

In the early 1970s, the boundary of "W" National Park in Burkina Faso was indistinguishable from surrounding areas.
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Credit: UNEP

In 2005, the difference between the national park - the most pristine of Burkina Faso's protected areas - and the land surrounding it, which has experienced a population explosion, is clearly seen.
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Credit: UNEP

The area now occupied by the Sidi Toui National Park on the northern edge of the Sahara Desert, in south-east Tunisia, as it looked in a 1987 satellite image - barren as a consequence of droughts, over-grazing and agriculture.
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Credit: UNEP

After the Sidi Toui National Park was established in 1993, grasses and scrub revived inside the park boundaries, seen clearly in the eastern part of the region.