By James Kilner LONDON (AlertNet) – Once one of the world’s largest lakes, Lake Chad in west Africa has shrunk by 90 percent since 1963 and pushed millions of people living along its shores into a competition for survival, the U.N. said on Thursday. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) blamed climate change and population pressure for shrinking the lake from about the size of Israel to an area smaller than the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. “The humanitarian disaster that could follow the ecological catastrophe needs urgent interventions,” said Parviz Koohafkan, director of Land and Water Division at the FAO. “The tragic disappearance of Lake Chad has to be stopped and the livelihoods of millions of people living in this vast area should be safeguarded,” he said in a statement. There are about 30 million people living around Lake Chad, which borders Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Fishing on the lake has fallen by 60 percent, the FAO said, and grazing for cattle around its shores has dropped by nearly 50 percent since 2006. “If water continues to recede at the current rate, Lake Chad could disappear in about twenty years from now, according to NASA climate forecasts,” the FAO’s statement said. …
Humanitarian crisis looms around shrinking Lake Chad — U.N.
