Experts: Global Warming to Decimate Botswana's Wildlife and Water Resources
Xinhua News Agency, November 16, 2011 Adjust font size:
Global warming will decimate Botswana's wildlife and water resources and displace many Batswana in 50 years, anthropologist Richard Leakey was quoted as saying by local media on Tuesday.
The Kenya-based anthropologist said Botswana faces harsh climatic conditions in 50 years due to the effects of global warming. Climate change will decimate the country's wildlife and water resources and displace many Batswana who will be forced to flee drying up areas in search of places with better water resources.
According to Leakey, the concept of national parks will not save the wildlife rather make matters worse for them in the next five decades as the effects of global warming will be felt. He urged governments to rethink the concept of national parks in order to guarantee the continued sustainability of wildlife.
"When national parks' biodiversity is disturbed due to the effects of global warming, wildlife will need to move out of the parks to fend for themselves but human habitations surrounding the parks would make the wildlife movements impossible, resulting in deaths," he said.
Botswana is famed for its rich wildlife resources, the Chobe National Park located in the northwest of the country is best known for its concentrations of elephant – some 120, 000 individuals, along with good numbers of buffalo, antelope and predators
Leakey predicted that as global warming takes its toll, wildlife would be concentrated in only one area of the country that could sustain them. And Botswana as a semi-arid country will get drier and drier, resulting in depletion of ground water resources, a phenomenon that will also force people to flee to areas that would sustain their water needs.
Leakey also warned that crop production would be severely hit in the next 50 years as plant species die out due to the effects of climate change. While some scientific work has estimated sea- levels could rise by three metres, Leakey said this would prove disastrous to cities and countries around the sea.
