Environmental Issues
Mali faces numerous environmental challenges, including desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, drought, and inadequate supplies of potable water. Deforestation is an especially serious and growing problem. According to the Ministry of the Environment, Mali’s population consumes 6 million tons of wood per year for timber and fuel. To meet this demand, 400,000 hectares of tree cover are lost annually, virtually ensuring destruction of the country’s savanna woodlands.
Mali is a party to international treaties on Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, and Wetlands. It has signed, but not ratified: the Kyoto Protocol and the Nuclear Test Ban.
Read more about this topic: Geography Of Mali
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“Cynicism formulates issues clearly, but only to dismiss them.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)