Strangled weeds grow in the ashes of a rain forest burned into oblivion. Across the continent, deserts overtake grassy meadows. Floodwaters wash away fertile farms. Overshadowed by war, poverty and disease, the biggest threat to Africa's future lies in the land itself, U.N. experts and scientists warned Saturday. Deforestation, overgrazing and harmful irrigation practices are transforming vast areas of the world's poorest continent into virtual wasteland.
National economies are crippled, fueling social and political havoc.
Once a place of plenty, checkerboard patches of land on the surrounding hillsides now lie bare from years of erosion. And our people are suffering without food. There is no work for them any more, and each year there is less food on the table. Already 200 million people are chronically malnourished, double the figure 30 years ago. Most Africans today eat about four-fifths of what they did in the 1950s, when the continent was a net exporter of food.