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GGH2604 ASSIGNMENT 02 2023
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Essay critically examining the anticipated effects of human activities on the environment in the African region on the folowing urbanisation, geoengineering, plastic pollutio
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GGH2604 ASSIGNMENT 02 2023Preview
According to Burtynsky et al. (2018), "We have reached an unprecedented moment in
planetary history”. “The Earth and its processes are arguably being changed more by
humans than by all other natural factors combined.”
Write an essay critically examining the anticipated effects of human activities on the
environment in the African region on the following:
• Urbanization
• Plastic pollution, and
• Geoengineering
, Overpopulation in Africa led to human activities that affect the environment. Many
studies have shown that human activities are a contribution of how the environment is
being damage for example urbanization the increasing of population in the cities is
taking its toll in most African regions. Rapid urbanization not only affect people but it
also affects the environment. Natural resources are destroyed to make room for an
increasing population in the city. Africa, a continent exceptionally rich in biodiversity, is
rapidly urbanizing. Africa's urbanization is manifest in the growth of its megacities as
well as that of its smaller towns and cities. The conservation planning and practice will
increasingly need to account for direct and indirect impacts of the continent's
urbanization. The objective of our study is to pinpoint the outstanding challenges and
opportunities afforded by the growing cities on the continent to the conservation goals
and practices. While there have been many studies on the impacts of urbanization and
development on conservation in Africa these studies tended to focus on specific issues.
Urban areas, growing both in population and in land cover, pose threats to the integrity
of the continent's ecosystems and biodiversity but their growth also create opportunities
for conservation. The increasing urban populations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa,
increase the strain on already insufficient infrastructure and bring new governance
challenges. Yet, Africa's ecosystems can serve as foundations for green infrastructure
to serve the needs of its urban populations while safeguarding fragile biodiversity.
Overall, while worsening social problems overshadow the concerns for biodiversity
there are also promising initiatives to bring these concerns into the fold to address
social, institutional, and ecological challenges that emerge with the continued
urbanization of the continent. Much of urban expansion in Africa is characterized by
unplanned and unregulated growth, exacerbated by the legacy of colonialism, structural
adjustment, and neo liberalism that spawned weak urban planning institutions.
According to the World health organisations (2008) In urban areas, unemployment rates
are high and about 60 percent of jobs are in the informal or grey economy, neither taxed
nor monitored by the government. Hence, Africa's GDP tends to underestimate the
amount of economic activity. There are also informal modes of social protection and
unregulated land markets, infrastructure and service provision. Complicated settlement–
governance arrangements, with weak local authorities and poor land-use management
capacity mean that, even while there are examples of extreme density in 'slums' and
informal settlements, the overall African urban form is low density. In particular,
unregulated peri-urban construction, often by the urban middle classes or expatriates,
has spawned low-rise sprawl or the suburbanization of the countryside. The negative
impacts of urbanization are evidenced in the expanding haloes of deforestation around
cities and transportation routes. Such exploitation of natural resources in expanding
waves, progressively from the most highly valued to less, is observed both in large cities
and around smaller settlements. Peri-urban agriculture, though important for food
security in many Sub-Sharan African countries, can also contribute to loss and
degradation of habitats around cities. Environmental degradation spreading out from an
urban center can be significantly enhanced in both speed and intensity depending on
the state of the transportation network. In the near future, the regions that may
experience such degradation most rapidly and extensively are eastern and southern
Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Cameroon, due to their high rural
population densities and high foreign demand for their agricultural lands.
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