Africa in transition: what role for the environment?

Africa is not only the fastest growing continent in terms of population (reaching at least two billion inhabitants by 2050), it has also been probably the fastest-growing continental economy of the last decade, with urban centres bursting with energy, (and demand, and expectations), and with growing evidence of agricultural breakthroughs with many crop and animal products. During the last fifty years, Africa’s population had already tripled and its expanding agricultural sector—and exploding internal and external demand for firewood and other forestry products as well as for water, minerals, and fossil fuels—had resulted in massive land use change. This brought with it a number of threats to biodiversity and soil quality, all amid the looming backdrop of global climate change and its potential impact on the continent. In this chapter, these recent and predicted processes of environmental change will be unpacked and interpreted in relation to their differentiated impacts on diverse geographical settings (such as humid or arid areas) as well as on manifestations of economic, political, and cultural diversity (such as crop cultivation or pastoralism).