Protected Areas and Other Solutions for the Future

There are protected areas for this region. It is reported that the remaining conserved areas are the ones that are protected. The total protected are is over 90,000 square kilometers, which is 6.7% of the total ecoregion. Some examples of the protected area are: Boucle du Baoulé National Park in Mali, the River Gambia N.P. in Gambia, Niokolo-Koba N.P. in Senegal, Kainji Lake N.P. in Nigeria, Mole N.P. in Ghana, and Comoe N.P. in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as the transboundary ‘W’ N.P.s in Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin [1] (worldwildlife.org, 2012). In addition, WWF aims to conserve the habitat in Central and Southern Africa. One example would be the project named the Northern Sudanian Savanna network of protected areas, in which the objective is to preserve the natural resources in the local community [2] (wwf.panda.org, 2012).

Boucle du Baoulé National Park in Mali

 http://evawayus.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/original/B4/B4-62-C2-FA-42-C0-52-0F-41-93-F5-28-4C-96-31-98-12-A0-E7-D5.jpg

Kainji Lake N.P. in Nigeria

http://nationalmirroronline.net/thumbnail.php?file=/Entrance_to_the_Kanji_Lake_National_Park_337511736.jpg&size=article_large

Since most countries have now established protection for these regions [1] (worldwildlife.org, 2012), the conservation status should increase over time. By continuing to preserve this area and finding new methods to obtain wood, such as going to different ecosystems with abundant amount of trees can be a possible solution. As of now, the conservation status is not the greatest for Savannas [3] (Gillespie, 2012) but hopefully it will most likely improve throughout the course of the years.

Source: [1] http://worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/at0722

[2] http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/ecoregions/sudanian_savannas.cfm
[3] Dr. Gillespie's Geography 5 Lecture