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Humanitarian crisis looms around shrinking Lake Chad -- U.N.
Written by: James Kilner
A composite of Landsat-7 images from November 2000 to February 2001 shows the present stage of Lake Chad. The small patch of blue that is now the lake stands in stark contrast to the wide swath of the old lake bed (shown in green, indicating vegetation).
LONDON AlertNet) - Once one of the world's largest lakes, Lake Chad in west Africa has shrunk by 90 percent since 1963 and pushed millions of people living along its shores into a competition for survival, the U.N. said on Thursday. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) blamed climate change and population pressure for shrinking the lake from about the size of Israel to an area smaller than the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. "The humanitarian disaster that could follow the ecological catastrophe needs urgent interventions," said Parviz Koohafkan, director of Land and Water Division at the FAO. "The tragic disappearance of Lake Chad has to be stopped and the livelihoods of millions of people living in this vast area should be safeguarded," he said in a statement. There are about 30 million people living around Lake Chad, which borders Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Fishing on the lake has fallen by 60 percent, the FAO said, and grazing for cattle around its shores has dropped by nearly 50 percent since 2006. "If water continues to recede at the current rate, Lake Chad could disappear in about twenty years from now, according to NASA climate forecasts," the FAO's statement said. The FAO also said that two major rivers that feed into Lake Chad -- the Chari and the Logone -- have decreased in flow significantly over the last 40 years. Aid agencies say they are already trying to relieve millions of people caught in a famine in east Africa, a humanitarian crisis they also blame on climate change.
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