Meet Yahya Sanyang of Kerrseringe
Occupying a total area of 11,300 square kilometre, with a population density of 2.28 million, The Republic of the Gambia is one of the most densely populated countries on continental Africa. The Gambia possesses minimal commercial mineral resources.
Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for many Gambians, employing more than 68% of the workforce and accounting for about 40% of the Gambia’s export earnings. This contributes to about 26% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Agriculture is predominantly subsistence and rain-fed with farmers relying on traditional shifting, cultivation and livestock management practices. Over the last fifty years cropland area increased from under 100,000ha to over 300,000ha at the expense of natural woodland and wetland ecosystems.
The Gambia’s climate is Sudano-Sahelian, characterised by high variability in the quantity and distribution of annual rainfall. Climate data shows that the past 50 years have seen a decrease in total rainfall, the length of rainy season, and increase in length and re-occurrence of extreme weather events such as droughts and dust storms. Climate change adaptation the Gambia is highly vulnerable. The low-lying topography, combined by high dependence on subsistence rain-fed agriculture and inland fishing, has made the Gambia a climate-sensitive economy. Over half of the population depends on subsistence farming in the context of food security.
The British land resource study was just a succinct version of the accounts of that survey the land resource survey and because we have succinct version, we cannot go ahead we don’t have the apparatus to undertake the research activities fully. We were left with only inadequate information about our own environment. Since 2016 the Chinese were taking glass oxide from here in the form of sand in containers, before that it was done by a European company.
Around 30% of The Gambia is only 10m above sea level, so floods are particularly dangerous. Rain-fed cash crop farms, fauna and flora are very sensitive to water and wind. We are losing land faster to erosion than it is replenishing. In addition to the blowing and washing away of significant quantities of fertile top soil, a formidable variety of soils supportive of diversified agricultural productivity, succumb to depletion.
The rains from June to October storm on the unprotected, stripped landscape. Significant quantities of fertile top soil runs off, contaminating waterbodies and simultaneously backfilling both the river beds and the adjacent lowland depressions. This constrains the inland fisheries and the promotion of especially the fresh water species stocks.
Alternatively, the Harmattan prevalent November too, may quickly dried the vegetation cover and maintains a drought that aggravates even small fires. The bush fires devastate huge extensive hectares annually inhibiting the rejuvenation of the forest and limiting both livestock and wildlife feedstuffs and boroughs in the first half of the dry season.
The wind during the dry ‘harmattan’ season gains momentum, and blows away critical top soil. Oxidation occurs in the humus in the soil: carbon in humus binds with the oxygen in the atmosphere to which it is exposed, resulting in the release of carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere: C + 02 = Co2. In URR, the slope angles are much steeper as this is the foot of the Futa Jallon highlands. What we realize now is that the heat of the past days is a result of the humus in the ground oxidation. It’s so unfortunate that people don’t understand this system, even though they are farmers.
Many people are aware of the issue, but since some are yet to be directly affected, they underestimate this invisible enemy, and neglect to take action. Our modern day lifestyle is destabilising the ecosystem, and the ignorance is making us lose time. This needs to change. Today both flora and fauna has dwindled, just as the rain and soil fertility has diminished. We face rapid population growth and high rates of urbanisation, endangering the remaining productive lands.
Nature nurtures us, so our responsibility is to conserve it.