The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, is organizing a two-day meeting of experts in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to discuss ways to stop Lake Chad from drying up. The lake, located between the Northeast tip of Nigeria and Chad, has been hit by years of environmental decline that adversely affected the region.
The forum, which is also being sponsored by Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin Commission, aims to restore the natural habitats at the lake and save it from extinction. Five countries whose borders are contingent with the lake – Nigeria, Chad, Niger Republic, Cameroon and Central African Republic – will be involved in the $6.5m research and conservation program.
The effects of Climate change and poor management of water resources have caused the surface of Lake Chad, which used to be the principal source of freshwater for 40 million people, to decline appreciably.
The experts, who have now converged on Abuja, are expected to devise ways of halting the decline so that the current adversity will be reversed. The rising rate of hunger in the region tended to make it prone to Boko Haram militants. They have increasingly targeted subsistence farmers and fishermen there in order to fill their ranks.
The continuing Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad region has forced thousands of people to flee the place, cross borders in search of food and safety. This explains why troops from Cameroun, Niger Republic and Chad have joined Nigeria in fighting the jihadists in that region
UNESCO says that more than two million people have been displaced from their homes while 10.7 million are in need of food handouts to survive in the region.
