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Cause for Concern in Africa
Afrotropics
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Flooded Grasslands and Savannas
Inner Niger Delta flooded savanna
More than 500,000 people live in the Inner Delta of the Niger River, herding millions of sheep and goats and using the floodplains for dry-season grazing. They also fish for sustenance and income and grow many crops on the wetland's productive soils. These activities have caused some habitat loss in the region, but damming and irrigation projects pose even more serious threats.
About 11 million people live in the Chad Basin, and their domestic cattle, goats, and sheep have come to replace much of the native wildlife. Overfishing and hunting have led to declining animal populations, pollution threatens wildlife habitat, and diversion of water for agriculture and industrial uses may further reduce lake levels.
Much of the Sudd swamps are a vast, near-wilderness. Dinka, Nuer, and Shiluk tribes live in the region, supporting themselves by herding cattle and fishing. Conservationists do not know what effects the recent civil war has had on this region. Signs indicate that vehicle traffic and poaching have increased due to war-related movements. For example, elephants may have been hunted out of the region. Before the war, major water diversion projects threatened the wetlands and their wildlife.
Recently, a long war in Mozambique took a huge toll on local wildlife populations. During the war, the military took over the country's parks and hunted wildlife for food. In just 13 years, populations of buffalos, waterbucks, and reedbucks declined by about 90 percent. Now that the war is over, the major threat to biodiversity is now damming of the rivers. Dams dry out downriver habitats, permanently flood upriver habitats, increase the number of fires, spread exotic vegetation, and lead to increased salinity of freshwater habitats.
Many of the floodplains of this region are largely untouched, but habitat loss is on the rise because of river damming and increased farming. Although the region has many protected areas, these areas have sometimes been subject to poaching, illegal grazing, fires, and other problems. Human population density is generally low, in part because the region contains so many disease-carrying organisms.
Much of this ecoregion is protected as part of the Magkadikgadi National Park. However, human water use is a problem here. During the wet season, people divert the fresh water flowing into the pans for irrigation.
Like other areas of Angola, this ecoregion was little studied before the country's civil war or since. The remaining patches of forest are threatened by overcollection of fuelwood and timber. Human-induced fires help maintain open grasslands but often encroach into forested areas and result in slowly shrinking forest patches and fragments. Scientists are hoping for access to this area to study its condition and the risks it faces.
Agriculture, hunting, and timber harvesting are severe threats to this ecoregion. Most of the large mammals have already been hunted out completely. Before the Angolan civil war, much of the understory was cleared and replaced with coffee plantations. During the war, however, many coffee plantations were abandoned, enabling the forests to grow back. Until the civil war ends, the fate of this ecoregion can't be known.
Because the highest rocky slopes of this region are relatively inaccessible by humans, these habitats are largely intact. The greatest threat the ecoregion faces is from mountain climbers and hikers who inadvertently tread on rare and vulnerable plants. On lower slopes, however, this ecoregion faces many threats. Much of the forest at lower elevations has been cleared for agriculture or timber production, resulting in loss of habitat and severe soil erosion. Today there are too many domestic animals being grazed in areas too small to support them. And invasive, inedible shrubs such as bitterbush and alpine everlasting are displacing native grasses.
Drakensberg montane grasslands, woodlands and forests
Only small patches of the original forest of this ecoregion remain today. Many areas have been heavily grazed by livestock, leaving native grasslands in this ecoregion open to invasion by less edible grass species. Fire has also dramatically altered the vegetation and destroyed forests. Other problems include human activities such as collecting firewood and stripping bark from trees for medicinal purposes.
