Ch. 3— Status of Biological Diversity • 69 



m 



Box 3-B. — Typical Excerpts From Development Assistance Agency Reports Addressing 

 Environmental Constraints to Development 



India/Pakistan Border Lands in the Sind-Kutch Region (24) 



The predominant natural terrestrial vegetation in the region appears to be a low, open-type of 

 dry tropical thorn forest, interspersed in places with grassland. Due to the long and pervading influence 

 of man and grazing stock, the present vegetation is frequently a highly degraded form of low and 

 sparse xerophytic scrub. 



The Indus delta is a critical area of high biological diversity and productivity. Mangrove zone 

 creeks and mudflats hold crustaceans, are important to bird populations, and are a fisheries center 

 of local and international significance. The delta appears to be subject to reduced freshwater input, 

 increased salinity, overfishing, and environmental disturbances. 



Honduras (49) 



Deforestation by shifting cultivators in Yoro and Olancho is dramatic and well publicized. The 

 human tragedy is even more serious for the many thousands of campasino families living on degraded 

 lands in the Choluteca Valley and the areas bordering El Salvador. The forest cover has been peeled 

 back leaving a sparse patchwork of grazed bush fallow and cultivated plots. 



By far the greatest threat to natural area functions and wildlife is the indiscriminate destruction 

 of all natural vegetation by shifting agriculturalists and cattlemen regardless of the inappropriateness 

 of the sites for such uses. 



Mauritania (35) 



Rapid desertification of much of its territory and the consequent loss of land devoted to both 

 grazing and subsistence agriculture is the major environmental problem facing Mauritania today. 

 This process, although severely aggravated by the drought affecting the entire Sahelian area of Africa, 

 has been made worse by certain human practices that have upset the delicate balance of the area's 

 ecology. 



Sudan (23,56) 



Increased rural population has placed pressure on land resources used for agriculture, resulting 

 in shortened fallow periods and inadequate restitution of fertility. Crop yields have been reduced 

 over time, and exhausted land has been totally abandoned. With loss of the more productive areas, 

 marginal land that is prone to erosion has been cultivated, often with disastrous consequences. Between 

 El Fasher and Nyala, removal of the stabilizing effect of trees has set ancient and once stable sand 

 dunes in motion. 



Mechanized farming adversely affected the environment through encouraging soil erosion and 

 desertification, especially in areas of inadequate and unreliable rainfall. 



The present lack of a resource-use policy and the unbalanced use of land results in a loss of 5 

 million hectares from production annually. A total of 65 million hectares are affected by some form 

 of environmental degradation, which is equivalent to 60 percent of Sudan's potentially useful land area. 



The SCMU data are gathered from an inter- 3-1 summarizes some of the data on threatened 



national network of correspondents identified animals, 

 from research papers. For example, the person 



compiling data on mammals has about 5,000 Since the mid-1970s, numerous lists of threat- 

 informants and contacts worldwide (16). The ened plant species have been prepared. Because 

 lists, organized by classes of animals in geo- these are so new and most tropical regions do 

 graphic regions (e.g., New World mammals), not have such lists, the data cannot yet indi- 

 are revised on roughly a 10-year cycle. Table cate rates of extinction. For the temperate zone, 



