Climate change killing trees across the Sahel, says study

Women looking for grain in the Azoza village, in Ethiopia. © AFP PHOTO / OXFAM / IRINA FUHRMANN


20/12/2011 8:34 pm

Trees throughout Africa's Sahel region — vital to peoples' livelihoods — are dying as a result of long-term drought linked to climate change, according to a study.

It found that one in six trees in the region has died since the 1950s, whilst a fifth of species has disappeared locally, because of rising temperatures and lower rainfall linked to climate change. SciDev