Environment
Deforestation for fuel use and land-intensive agricultural production continued to be a significant environmental issue in many African countries. Other causes of deforestation included artisanal production of gemstones, lime, and sand and gravel. The West African Gas Pipeline, which is expected to start regularly operate in the end 2008, could help mitigate the effects of deforestation in Benin, Ghana, and Togo and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Currently (2005), natural gas was being flared by Nigeria; in the future, Nigeria expected to export natural gas to Benin, Ghana, and Togo. The government of Nigeria had committed to ending the flaring of natural gas, which would lead to decreased pollution.
The use of mercury by artisanal gold miners has led to serious air and water pollution in such African countries as Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Development Programme, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization began the Global Mercury Project in August 2002 to alleviate these problems. The Global Mercury Project has been providing cleaner technologies and training for miners, conducting health assessments, and helping institute government regulatory capacities.
Read more about this topic: Mining In Africa
Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“Today the young actors regard their environment with rage and disgust. They regard their Master not as disciples regard their Master, but as slaves regard their Master.”
—Judith Malina (b. 1926)
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)