Africa - Deforestation

Deforestation - the clearing and destruction of forests to harvest wood for consumption, clear land for agricultural uses, and make way for expanding settlement frontiers.

Given the extensive loss of forested areas in Africa in recent years, governments are trying to address the problem. The Nigerian government is planting trees and preserving vegetation that is natural to the area. Three million hectares have already been restored from land that was severely degraded in previous years. In Niger, surveyors found between ten and twenty percent more trees in 2005 than were seen thirty years earlier in the same area.