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:
“Autonomy means women defining themselves and the values by which they will live, and beginning to think of institutional arrangements which will order their environment in line with their needs.... Autonomy means moving out from a world in which one is born to marginality, to a past without meaning, and a future determined by others—into a world in which one acts and chooses, aware of a meaningful past and free to shape one’s future.”
—Gerda Lerner (b. 1920)
“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can’t know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do—after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world’s anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking to crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach.”
—Viola Spolin (b. 1911)