MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT: A Problem on our Hands

MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT: A Problem on our Hands

Degradation of the environment, man-made and natural, is a continuing process. More than anything else, it occurs very slowly; and this perhaps explains why we don’t seem to bother ourselves about it. Yet the process pushes on steadily, flashing red signals of impending disaster for mankind.

            In the northern parts of Nigeria, the Sahara Desert has been inching its way southwards eating up the once lush Sudan savannah. But, the ability of the citizen to plant a tree and nurture it to a healthy growth – that is a directive by the government – depends on the availability of water. Here, that water even for basic domestic use is a rare commodity.

The story in the south offers an equally cold-comfort. Here, everyone goes about obviously unaware of the looming crisis. The forest or their secondary and tertiary replacement still stands. So, they can, without a thought for the consequence, be felled for firewood, or burnt to give way to the needs of farmers still stuck to the old ways of agriculture; or to assuage the whims and caprices itinerant hunters in pursuit of animal’s species.

            According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Africa tropical forest is disappearing at a rate of approximately 170,000 square kilometers a year. Reforestation or afforestation, experts point out, cannot be relied on to produce anything near the virgin forests that have been destroyed because reforested areas are poor imitation of natural forests as they contain only a small fraction original plants and animal species.

Recent FAO statistics also show that during the past three decades, more than two-thirds of the West Africa forest has been destroyed. “Slash-and-burn agriculture, the cutting of firewood for fuel or carbonation, and uncontrolled exploitation are doing great damage,’ the FAO noted.

Dr. Matuka Kalaba, an environment analyst at the Ecological Science Division of UNESCO, said last week that the tropical forests of Africa are doing more endangered than those of either Latin America or Asia. And attribute the situation in Africa to the increasing population, the poverty of the continent, and the unplanted industrial exploitation of the forest.

Indeed, we have been wantonly destroy much of our natural habitat in the name of modernity and development and there are no signs that we have the capacity to recreate this precious gift of nature. Variations in the climate – they are outside our control – have also been adding to our woes as we experience baneful changes in rainfall regime. The solar system is making our earth hotter and hotter as the years rolls by.

Even at that, the angry waves of the Atlantic Ocean periodically surges forward, eating  up large chunks of our soil in coastal areas of Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Bendel, Rivers,, and Akwa Ibom states.

So, head or tail, we are losers. Yet it looks as if we are not worried. Except for the yearly tree planting campaigns around the month of July and the occasional radio  jungles exhorting the citizens ‘plant a tree’ Nigerians are yet to be fully aware of the future disaster which mankind faces on account of the destruction of his environment.

We have a problem on our hands, namely, global warning and climate change. The second World Climate Conference – October 29 to November 1990 – noted that all nations of the world should now take steps towards reducing sources and increasing sinks of greenhouse gases through national and regional actions. There is also need for local actions.

In West Africa, for example, climate change will have important effects on agriculture and livestock production, water resources, forestry, industry, transportation, and tourism. Problems of pests and diseases which would result from negative impact of weather and climate change may also be expected. No doubt, increased rainfall which is normally accompanied by increased humidity, couple with increase in temperature, would create a more favourable multiplication of pests.

Several effects will occur in regions of present-day vulnerability that are least able to adjust technologically. For example, it is currently being projected that the Sudan and Sahelian of West Africa may become wetter. Hence, one may expect greater problems of drought and desertification in the Sudano-Sahelian regions, and erosion in parts of the humid southern part of Nigeria.

QUESTIONS BASED ON THE ABOVE PASSAGE

1.     What environmental problems are mentioned in the passage?

2.     What are their causes?

3.     What is the reaction of people of these problems?

By

Eguriase S. M. Okaka