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The Forest Dwellers | The Big Man | Nigeria | The Nations of Africa
Africa is home to three deserts: the Sahara, the
Kalahari, and the Namib; together they comprise more than a quarter of the continent. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world, covering part or all of eleven African countries. Sahara is derived from the Arabic word for desert. The Kalahari is a cold, rocky desert in southern Africa. The Namib, in southwest Africa, is one of the hottest, driest places on earth, with less precipitation than even the Sahara.
The Sahel is the strip of land that separates savanna from the desert. Sahel comes from the Ara
bic word for "edge" or "border" because it is the edge of the desert.
The Sahel is shrinking at an alarming rate. Animals have been allowed to graze on its fragile land, which as destroyed the vegetation. The people who live along the Sahel have caused it to shrink by cutting trees and bushes for fuel. Without the trees and bushes to hold it in place, the thin topsoil is of the Sahel blown away, leaving stony land where neither grass nor crops can grow. The Sahara and the Kalahari Desert creep one hundred miles closer to one another every year as desertification and erosion spread.
I enjoyed
this site so much I had to share it with you. It's part of a Reader's
Digest series on natural history.
The
Land |
Deserts and
the Sahel |
A
Continent in Crisis
| Ethnic
Rivalries
The
Forest Dwellers
| The
Big Man |
Nigeria
|
The Nations of Africa
To cite this page:
Dowling, Mike, "The Electronic Passport Homework
to Deserts and the Sahel," available from http://www.mrdowling.com/611-sahel.html;
Internet; updated
Saturday, June 17, 2006
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