The dangers of black gold
Chad has significant oil reserves, mainly in the Doba basin in the south of the country. Oil exploitation, largely supported by the World Bank, which wants to make Chad a case study in eliminating the famous black gold curse, is already having a negative impact, not only socio-economically, but also environmentally. It generates significant pollution of soil, air and water reserves, causing serious damage to public health.
While wells have historically been operated by Western companies, Chinese players have recently become involved, and are even less fussy about environmental standards. In 2013, for example, the Chadian government suspended China National Petroleum Corporation for environmental violations. The Asian giant was guilty of digging huge trenches to dump crude oil in the wild, in order to cut costs. The oil company was fined $1.2 billion. However, in the same year, the government announced its intention to further increase oil production..
Drought and desertification
Chad is one of the countries in the world most exposed to the risks of climate change. For almost fifty years, rainfall has been falling sharply, while temperatures have been rising steadily. The country now receives 50% less rainfall than in the 1970s. The rainy season, which used to last 5 months, now only lasts three, from July to September.
The consequences of these increasingly long and intense periods of drought are already being felt. Chad has fallen victim to the phenomenon of desertification: the process of soil degradation that turns into desert. The desert is advancing by around 3 km per year.
The symbol of this struggle is none other than Lake Chad, an immense lake shared by Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, whose surface area covers almost 8% of the continent! Yet this colossus is shrinking like a stone. Since the 1960s, its surface area has even been divided by 10: from 25,000 km2, it is now just 2,500 km2. As a result, the lake's salinity is rising rapidly, threatening the species that live there, many of which are threatened with extinction.
The impact on populations, too, is already well underway. Over 20 million people in the four countries depend on the lake for their livelihood. Not to mention the rest of the population of Chad, 80% of whom live on subsistence farming, which is becoming increasingly meagre as a result of the drought. Already, major migrations are taking place, with populations from the north, driven out by the desert, now massively investing in the south of the country.
The Great Green Wall
In 2007, the Great Green Wall project was born: a wall of vegetation crossing Africa from west to east, with the aim of halting the advance of the desert. The idea was born at an international summit on curbing desertification, held in Chad at the turn of the century. Eleven countries, including Chad, have since formed the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall.
The 15 km-wide wall aims to change the lives of millions of people, by strengthening food security, boosting employment and the economy, revitalizing biodiversity, and curbing the effects of climate change. Yet, fifteen years after the start of the program, the project has progressed by less than 20%.
Chad has nonetheless made its contribution to the project, even if major efforts remain to be made. Between 2016 and 2019, the country planted around 2 million trees to protect against the desert. These trees are mainly acacias, a species not historically cultivated in Chad. However, it provides the famous gum arabic, which the food and cosmetics industries love. The impact is already being felt in the rural economy, to the extent that Chad has become the world's second largest producer of gum arabic.
Natural sites
Chad has numerous protected areas, covering around 20% of the country. There are four national parks. However, despite the protection they enjoy, they are under considerable pressure. Manda National Park in the south, for example, is suffering from human activity. Too many shepherds grazing their animals there are damaging the vegetation, while poaching is reducing the fauna. The Derby eland(Taurotragus derbianus), an imposing antelope that was the original reason for the park's creation, has even disappeared. Nevertheless, the park is home to many species, including lions during the dry season. Well located and offering beautiful landscapes, the authorities now see great potential for ecotourism, and Manda National Park could be the subject of a rehabilitation project in the future, like Zakouma National Park.
Zakouma, by far the country's most popular park, was long neglected, particularly during the civil war. Since 1989, it has been the subject of a major rehabilitation project, thanks in particular to the support of the European Union. In addition to the importance of this renovation for tourism and the economy, the park is also home to a rich fauna and flora, some of which are extremely rare. These include the Kordofan giraffe(Giraffa camelopardalis antiquorum), a critically endangered subspecies of giraffe. The park's elephants, meanwhile, enjoy special government protection. Although the ivory trade is strictly forbidden, as is elephant hunting, poaching continues. A sign of the success of their protection within the park: in 2018, for the first time in a decade, the pachyderm population increased within Zakouma.
National parks are far from being the only preserved natural spaces in Chad. The Archeï guelta is one of the most important gueltas in the Sahara. This name refers to basins where water accumulates during floods, forming wetlands surrounded by cliffs, typical of deserts. The Archeï guelta, a veritable oasis, is home to numerous species, including the enigmatic desert crocodile(Crocodylus suchus), once abundant throughout the Sahara region, and which finds one of its last refuges in the Archeï guelta. Other gueltas, such as the Bachikélé guelta and the Déli guelta, are also home to a rich fauna and can be visited.
Another exceptional natural site, the Ounianga lakes to the north, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A touch of blue in an infinite expanse of sand, these 18 lakes are the largest group of lakes in the Sahara.
