Population density and rapid growth are the factors most frequently invoked to explain Africa's environmental problems. But population and environmental dynamics cannot be linked in a mechanistic way. Geographical distribution of populations does not always match the built-in capacity of an environment to sustain human life. The most populated areas are not necessarily those with the most favourable climate and the best soils. Land uses include herding, various forms of agriculture and other uses of natural resources.
Agriculture is rain-fed in some places and irrigated in others.
In both situations, areas of traditional, subsistence agriculture are mixed with cash-crop market gardens and farms. There are many Sahels. Local situations are not static but involve powerful and conflicting dynamics. It is impossible to provide a simple picture of the diversity and complexity of the relationship between societies and nature in the Sahel. The dominant model of development, as an intervention to introduce change into societies trapped in archaic traditions and economic stagnation, is inappropriate nothing can be grasped about the current crisis without consideration of the rivalries that confront, and the alliances that unite, the many who share or compete for common environmental resources local diversity means the development challenge is to respond to specific local problems and needs, whilst at the same time introducing larger concepts and agreeing frameworks that allow communities and individuals to achieve what they want using their own ways and means.