JPRS ID: 10321 WORLDWIDE REPORT ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: JPRS
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00850R000500030030-0
• Release Decision: RIF
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: November 1, 2016
• Sequence Number: 30
• Content Type: REPORTS

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JPRS L/ 10321 ~
12 February 1982
Worldwide Re ort
p
ENVIRONMENTAL C~UALITY
- (FOUO 2/82)
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- JPRS L/10321
12 February 1982
WORLDWIDE REPORT
= ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
(~ouo 2/s 2 )
CONTENTS
- SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
INTER-AFRICAN AFFAIRS
~ T.ack of Rain Harming Sahel Agriculture
(Mohamed Maiga; JEUNE AFRIQliF, 16 Dec 81) 1
= MADAGASCAR
Briefs
Tropical Storm Damage 3
WEST EUROPE
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
Increased Pollution of Baltic Sea Predicted
~Horet Guentheroth; STr,RN, 17 Dec 81) .....................t 4
- a - [III - WW - 139 FOUO]
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INTER-AFRICAN AFFAIRS
LACK OF RAIN HARMING SAHEL AGRICULTURE
Paris JEUNE AFRIQUE in French No 1093, 16 Dec 81 pp 82, 83
[Ait~cle by Mohamed Maiga: "Requiem for the Sahel"J
[Text] Once more, the shadow of death hangs over the Sahel. This yea:~, the
food situation for men and livestock is more precarious there than in the darkest
days of the seventies. The 1981-82 farming season will obviously be a failure
in practically all the states of that area forsaken by the gods. And this year,
as in the pre~ious year and as in the 1972-73 season, ~hey all live with the
_ haunting fear of a serious grain shortage.
- "I have never seen anything as bad as this," we were recently toJ.d by "grand-
- father" Bonzei, a robust 84-year old man now retired from tt?e Water and Forestry
Services Department of Watagoima (Mali). Bonzei, with almost a century of ex-
perience in desertification, knows what he is talking about.
What happened in 1981? Mother Nature betrayed mankind as it did last year.
The rainy season started auspiciously in May. The rains were coming down thick
and fast. Good green grass and grain shoots carried the promise of good har-
vests for December and January. But, unfortunately, these hopes were soon shat-
tered. Just like in 1980. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started.
That was in S~ptember and October, at the most critical moment, when the grains
are at the stage of "advanced pregnancy~" as they say in the Sahel, and badly
needed the water. The millet--grown on "hilly areas" which means far from the�
rivers--soon turned yellow then crumbled away under the saddened and powerless
eyes of the farmers who had spent their last ounces of energy weeding and doing
other arduous tasks under a relentless sun.
The rice, which had been planted along the rivers, went the same way as the
mtllet. Both in Mali and in Niger, the ricefields waited in vain for the flood-
waters which should have made up for the lack of rain. The "freshet" came too
late.
An additional scourge, insects and other "millet-eaters," ,jeopardized any ef-
forts, however small, made to irrigate. Forming huge black clouds, for weeks
the locusts a;~d grasshoppers swept down on the young shoots which were still
standing. Something unusual if not unprecedented happPned: these small beasts,
1

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~ morE ~~oracious than usual, devoured eve~ tne grass reducing the livestock to
dyi??g. So for many stockbreeders, the laborious and slow "reconstitution of
the livestock" is a phrase which does not make sense anqmore. After becoming
- consolidated for a period, the nomadic cattlemen are dispersing agai.n driven
- by the need to seek hypothetical waterholes and grazing lands.
As for the sedentary cattlemen, they are emigrating again to the very few areas
which have fared better (and there are not many of those). This is why in the
Watagouna District (saved from desertification by the determined fight against
woodcutters carried out first by Bonzei and late~ by his son Bouba) which lies
between Mali and Niger, th~re has been a concentration of populations of every
ethnic origin. Some live off the wild fonio while others rely on good old
African solidarity and wait for the relief of "international assistance."
However, most of these populations of northern Mali are migrating toward their
traditional population development areas: Niger whfch is facing a difficult
food situation; Ghana in the clutches of insurmotm table economic problems;
- Nigeria which j.s determined to oppose the immigration of its African "brothers";
the Ivory Coast wiiich is no longer the same Eldorado as during the last decade.
- Since misfortune never comes in a single shape, the foad shortage hit the local
population just wiien the liberalization of grain trade practices in Mali has
resulted in shattering increases of prices.... What little rice there ~s costs
SQO Malian francs (?,50 CFA francs) a kilo in a country of large families and
small incomes. High prices also make it difficult to purchase a bag of millet
in Niger....
An even more serious development, which is the cause of the famine drama, is
the desertification which becomes more visibl.e with every passing year. In a
location 100 kilometers west of Watago~na, a sexagenarian sadly looks at the
sand-covered landscape and reminisces: "Tu think that 20 years ago I spent
my days fighting the baboons. The presence of baboons indicate the presence
of forests or, at least, of dense vegetation. This proves how rapidly the
environment is deteriorating. The awakening threatens to be shattering for
- people further south who think that they are safe from the desert....
Naturall.y, the inl~