Senegal'senvironmental issues are varied. According to theCIA world factbook pressing problems exist with: diminishing wildlife populations which are threatened bypoaching,deforestation,overgrazing,soil erosion,desertification, andoverfishing.[1]
Climate change in Senegal will have wide reaching impacts on many aspects of life inSenegal.Climate change will cause an increase in average temperatures over west Africa by between 1.5 and 4 °C (3 °F and 7 °F) by mid-century, relative to 1986–2005.[2] Projections of rainfall indicate an overall decrease in rainfall and an increase in intense mega-storm events over theSahel.[3][4] The sea level is expected to rise faster inWest Africa than the global average.[5][6] AlthoughSenegal is currently not a major contributor to globalgreenhouse gas emissions, it is one of the countries mostvulnerable to climate change.[7][8]
Extremedrought is impactingagriculture, and causing food and job insecurity. More than 70% of thepopulation is employed in theagricultural sector.Sea level rise and resultingcoastal erosion is expected to cause damage to coastal infrastructure and displace a large percentage of the population living incoastal areas. Climate change also has the potential to increaseland degradation that will likely increasedesertification in eastern Senegal, leading to an expansion of theSahara.[9]
Climate change adaptation policies and plans are important to help Senegal prepare and adapt. In 2006, Senegal submitted its National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.[10] The NAPA identifies water resources, agriculture, and coastal zones as the country's most vulnerable sectors.[11] In 2015, Senegal released itsIntended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's) that indicated climate change would be treated as a national priority.[11]
Like other parts of West Africa and the developing world, social forces and policies are leading todeforestation andecosystem degradation, leading to effects likeDesertification andsocial erosion. Charcoal production,[12] alongside pressure to expandagriculture in Senegal to meet thequadrupling of population has led to increased loss of forest.[13]
In 2006, Senegal still had 45.1% —or about 8,673,000 hectares—of forest with 18.4% — or roughly 1,598,000 hectares — classified asprimary forest.[14] In 2007 Senegal was losing 350,000 hectares of forest per year through slash-and-burn for farming because of its rapidly growing population.[13] Variability of rainfall compounded with issues like climate change, lead About 13% of the land - holding about 22% of the population - are now considereddegraded.[15] Senegal had a 2018Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.11/10, ranking it 56th globally out of 172 countries.[16]
In 2016, the government warned that theCasamanceforest cover would have vanished by 2018, ifillegal logging continued.[17]
Since 1970s Senegal has lost 25% of its mangrove forests.[18] Recent efforts have been led by the organizationOceanium to replant the mangroves.[18]
The national Forest Service designed in the early 2000s was designed to democratize and decentralize forest management.[19] However, subsequent analysis by academics found that inequalities favor commercial interests and exploitation by economic forces.[20]
West African communities face pressure from both overfishing by local fleets as well as Asian and European fleets harvesting from fisheries in West Africa as other fisheries become overfished or collapse.[21] For example fleets in 2017Saint-Louis, Senegal have seen a large decline in harvest, causing ripple effects on nutrition and food supply in the country, where 75% of animal protein comes from fish.[21]White grouper fisheries in Senegal's waters have collapsed.[22]
Where does a four-fold increase in a country's population over half a century make itself felt most acutely? Concerning Senegal, the answer to this might well be: in the forests. At the time of independence in 1960, the West African country was home to three million people. By 1976, the figure had increased to seven million, while in July 2006 it stood at some 11.9 million. This quadrupling of the population in 47 years has led to an increase in the amount of land under cultivation, rising demand for firewood and charcoal, and acceleratedurbanisation. The result: Senegal loses about 350,000 hectares of its forests annually to fires that are frequently started to clear land for farming, and more than 80,000 hectares for agricultural needs, according to the Centre for Environmental Preservation (Centre pour la sauvegarde de l'environnement, CSE).