Poverty's effects on Africa's Enivronment

The first 200 words of this essay...

Welter 6

Poverty in Africa has a significant impact on the environment. Many countries in Africa are very rich with natural resources from oil to minerals. Africa has some of the best farmlands in the world, with the exception of the Sahara desert region, most other parts of Africa could be converted into great farmlands but most Africans have no access to fertile land and are unable to plant crops. It is not the lack of education that keeps Africans from planting crops but the treatment of them by the landowners. Most African farmworkers are severely underpaid and the revenues accrued by the landowners are never shared with the workers. For example, in Zimbabwe only twenty percent of all fertile land is available to ninety percent of the population, while there are millions of people at risk of dying from malnutrition. Nearly all of Africa's environmental problems are caused by humans, though not necessarily Africans. Parts of the continent south of the Sahara are experiencing serious desertification problems as a result of mismanagement of natural resources. Two thirds of the continent is desert or drylands and experiences frequent and severe droughts. Environmental degradation occurs in most of Africa