SUDAN:Sudan is unlikely to achieve a lasting peace unless it tackles widespread and accelerating environmental damage, according to a United Nations study which was published yesterday.
The assessment, drawn up by scientists at the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), says scarcity of resources such as water and pastureland has been instrumental in destabilising the war-torn region of Darfur and fuelling civil war in the south of the country.
Long-term trends in desertification - spreading 100km (62 miles) southwards in the past four decades - and deforestation show no sign of abating, it concludes, putting increasing pressure on the human population.
"Ignoring these environmental issues will ensure that some political and social problems remain unsolvable and even likely to worsen, as environmental degradation mounts at the same time as population increases," the report says.
A bitter, decades-long north-south war killed two million people before a peace deal in 2005. Violence continues in the western region of Darfur, where more than 200,000 have been killed since 2003.
In all, Sudan's conflicts have forced some seven million people from their homes.
There is evidence of long-term climate change in several parts of the country, with rainfall irregular and markedly lower, especially in the Darfur states, according to Nairobi-based Unep.
Achim Steiner, the agency's executive director, said the southern peace deal and last week's agreement to deploy a joint UN- African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur marked a step forward.
"It is clear however that a big part of that future and central to keeping the peace will be the way in which Sudan's environment is rehabilitated and managed," Mr Steiner said.
"Sudan's tragedy is not just the tragedy of one country in Africa - it is a window to a wider world underlining how issues such as uncontrolled depletion of natural resources like soils and forests, allied to impacts like climate change, can destabilise communities, even entire nations."
The report's recommendations include trying to reduce the environmental impact of the oil industry in central Sudan and the promotion of more sustainable agriculture.
Current farming methods are rain-fed and poorly managed, leading to large-scale forest clearance, land degradation and loss of wildlife. There has been a loss of nearly 12 per cent of Sudan's forest cover in just 15 years, it says.
The total cost of the report's recommendations is about $120 million over three to five years - easily affordable for a government that earns more than $5 billion (€3.7 billion) in oil exports, the report adds.