Nigerian Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo has started to tackle the nation’s severe environmental problems. Last week, he launched a campaign to plant 4,000 hectares of trees by the end of next year, an effort to fight deforestation and the advancing Sahara Desert. Ninety-six percent of the nation’s pristine forests have been cut down in the last 40 years, and enviros estimate that the nation currently loses 3,000 hectares of vegetation per year to logging, brush-burning, and desertification. In the southern part of the nation, coastal erosion, blamed primarily on rising sea levels caused by global warming, is eating away at the land.
