Sahelian+Africa

=Sudan at War With Itself= http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/sudan/index.html This article is about how Sudan has been at war with itself since their post colonial days. The article says that all of Sudan's ethnic groups and religious groups have fought with one another. In one of the major cities, Darfur, there has been such political unrest and rebellions that this has blown up to be one of the world's "biggest humanitarian crisis'". One of the problems is the black africans think that the muslim government is neglecting them. The janjaweed, a militia group, started killing civilians and 300,000 people were killed, says the United Nations.This kind of thing is going on all over the country. It is a Sudanese civil war. I think that the United Nations should try and do something to prevent this from happening. This sort of reminds me of when the holocaust of Rawanda went on and so many people were being killed and the UN didn't do anything to try and prevent the Tutsi people from being killed by the Hutu's. If you want to watch a fairly interesting video about some boys who fight in the war and what they do and how they live here is the link for youtube. i can't figure out how to put the video on here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1W6yZP_tIU

= = = = = = = = = = = = =Population Post= by Jayne Price Edwards Sahelian Africa: Sudan Chad Niger Mali Mauritania

My graph didn't work on here so i turned it into Mr. Hall but here is all of the information anyway. Mauritania has the lowest population of all of Sahelian Africa. Next comes Chad, then Mali, and then Niger. Sudan has the biggest population. Sudan is the 30th largest country in the world. I think the reason that Mauritania, Chad, and Mali are the smallest countries are because of their level of development. Sudan has obviously more development then Mauritania and therefore, they would have more people living and would eventually have a bigger population.

= = = = = = = = =Deforestation in Sahelian Africa= by Jayne Price Edwards http://www.africanconservation.org/content/view/1428/406/

Even though Africa has only 16% of the worlds forest area, from 2000 to 2005 it lost about one million hectares (100 acres, or 10,000 m²) a year. That is just about one third of the worlds global deforestation. Deforestation is the cutting, clearing out, and removing the rain forests and other similar biodiversities. While this is a world wide problem, it greatly effects the Sahelian African region, specifically Niger. There are many ways that deforestation is hurting our world today. First of all, trees take in our carbon dioxide that we emit into the air, and we use the oxygen that trees give off every second. Another thing we use trees for is paper. We need to use paper but we could always recycle (or teachers could give us smaller amounts of homework) that way we would be saving more of the trees. One of the things that scientists suggest to the government of Niger is using a tree that the Australian Aborigines use.



In my article, it talked about how for 20 years, scientists have been trying to convince the people of Niger to adopt a tree from the Australian Aborigines. This tree is called the acacia tree and is known for it's ability to withstand windstorms, heat, and drought. This tree is supposed to help the Nigerians in two main ways; 1. malnutrition and 2. soil. Nigerians are suffering from malnutrition, and their government thinks that these trees can help. The trees seeds are packed with protein. The next way these trees are supposed to help is by being planted in the crops. Scientists say that if these trees are planted every 5 meters in agricultural areas then their seeds will give off protein to the roots of other plants and they will act as a barrier to wind storms, therefore preventing the plants to dry out. Since 2004, scientists have been working with farmers all around Niger to try and get them to adopt this tree. The article said that the acacia tree is expected to live longer than most trees.