As of January 2018, more than 2.3 million people had been displaced by the conflict in the Lake Chad Basin region.“With around 4.5 million people in the basin being severely food insecure, there is a need to rigorously address the cause-and-effect relationship between the environment and human security,” said Erik Solheim, UN Environment’s Executive Director. A few hundred years later it's reduced to Lake Chad at only 355 square km, and an air of faded grandeur left. The surface area of the lake has plummeted from 26,000 square kilometers in 1963 to less than 1,500 square kilometers today. - In 1982, the lake’s surface area was estimated to be about 2,276 km2. The changes in the lake have contributed to local lack of water, crop failures, livestock deaths, collapsed fisheries, soil salinity, and increasing poverty throughout the region: - Between June 1966 and January 1973, the surface area of Lake Chad shrunk from 22,772 km2 to 15,400 km2.
At the time, the grazing was good and conflicts between herders and farmers were rare.
Straddling the borders of Chad, Niger and Cameroon in West Africa, Lake Chad has been a source of freshwater for irrigation projects in each of these countries.
The theme of the meeting is “Saving Lake Chad to restore its basin’s ecosystem for sustainable development, security and livelihoods”.The rigorous application of water-efficiency strategies will be essential to reversing the lake’s environmental degradation. It has also involved the holding of conferences bringing together ministers, heads of governments and officials from the United Nations, civil society, and other key players.These measures have, however, faced several challenges: desertification, migration due to climatic changes, security and financial challenges, and development policies that focus on short-term solutions. They also need to promote environmental education and implement systematic data collection, collation, storage and dissemination.By organizing the conference, UNESCO and the Lake Chad Basin Commission are offering a platform for governments and civil society to share best practice on sustainable management of the lake’s natural resources thus securing livelihoods of millions of the region’s inhabitants.UN Environment is working with countries and communities to prevent, or reverse, environmental degradation and mismanagement which are the root of many of the political, economic and social drivers of migration and displacement.As the leading global authority on the environment, UN Environment also promotes a more proactive approach to disaster risk reduction in the long term. The 1960s were a golden age for livestock keepers in the Lake Chad basin. This will enhance the ability of communities to withstand shocks and environmental change. - About 50% of the decrease in the lake’s size since the 1960s is attributed to human water use, with the remainder attributed to shifting climate patterns. - Invasive plant species currently cover about 50% of the remaining surface of Lake Chad. Using this item and referring to it is encouraged, and please use it in presentations, web pages, newspapers, blogs and reports. Save the planet. Lake Chad, once one of Africa’s largest lakes, is in distress.The lake is shared by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria; its basin – which extends as far Algeria, Libya, and Sudan – offers a lifeline to nearly 40 million people.Over the last 60 years, the lake’s size has decreased by 90 per cent as a result of over use of the water, extended drought and the impacts of climate change. In February 1994, Meteosat images measured it at just 1,756 km2. Lake Chad, once one of Africa’s largest lakes, is in distress. The basin's northeastern limit is the Ennedi Plateau, whose limestone bed rises in steps etched by erosion. The problem has been compounded by a lack of integrated management of water resources at the national and regional levels in the affected countries.In recent years, the environmental degradation has been complicated by the Boko Haram insurgency, which began in 2013. Lake Chad - a source of water to millions of people in West Africa - has shrunk by nine-tenths due to climate change, population growth and irrigation. Since 1963, the lake has shrunk to nearly a twentieth of its original size, due both to climatic changes and to high demands for agricultural water. Lake Chad is caught in a conflict trap. But between 1983 and 1994 irrigation had increased four-fold. However, droughts over the years have led to the loss of pasture.
The Lake Chad Basin humanitarian crisis has caused huge population displacement and left hundreds of thousands of children trapped behind conflict lines. Climate change is compounding these challenges.
Download infographic (PDF | … Research carried out over the past 40 years indicates that the main factors in the shrinking of the lake have been: - Major overgrazing in the region (Coe and Foley, 2001), resulting in a loss of vegetation and serious deforestation, contributing to a drier climate. Maps drawn from a series of satellite images show a dramatic decrease in the size of the lake over the past 30 years. Opt not to print. Photo courtesy of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via Flickr Commons. - Large and unsustainable irrigation projects built by Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, which have diverted water from both the lake and the Chari and Logone rivers.
The plan outlines commitments to empower local communities to build resilience to climate change while focusing on securing their livelihoods, thus increasing the lake’s contribution to regional food security and poverty alleviation.This year the commission, with the support of the Nigerian government and UNESCO, is holding a conference from 26 to 28 February in Abuja. During this period, it is estimated that there were about 20,000 commercial fish sellers in Chad alone. For this to be successful the states in the region will need to improve their cooperation and update their legal frameworks to protect the shared water resources.