Fostering Climate-Resilient Biodiversity Framework in West Africa and Implications for Regional Development

Abstract

West Africa is a geographical enclave in sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of more than 320 million people and endowed with diversified ecological systems, comprising tropical rain forests and mangroves in the south, as well as Sahelian and desert terrains in the north. A particularly problematic issue is the threat posed by global climate change. The development is compounded by the emergent demographic explosion, which has unleashed anthropogenic forces on the region’s fragile ecosystems. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a report on the region, observed a significant decline in rainfall since the end of the 1960s, with a reduction of 20–40%, spanning the periods 1931–1960 and 1968–1990. The long-term decline in precipitation has been blamed for a southward shift of the Sahelian, Sudanese, and Guinean agroecological zones during the second half of the twentieth century, prompting considerable loss of biodiversity across the subregion, with the disappearance of grassland and acacia and other flora and fauna. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to shed light on the impact of climate change on biological diversity in West Africa. The chapter employs empirical data to unveil the worsening state of biodiversity, fueling food insecurity, and endemic poverty across the region.