4 HUMAN ACTIONS FACTORS OF ZIO RIVER SILTING UP AND
BASIN DEGRADATION
According to the statistical data of the Maritime Regional
Management of the Plan on the evolution and the pattern of the settlements
these last years, only the plate of Tsévié is fairly populated
with a density around 80 inhabitants/km2; other hand, the plates of
Agoènyivé, Kpogan and the inshore bar concentrated high densities
from 200 to 300 inhabitants/km2 and thus know spaces problems.
Fringe zones of the Lome capital over populated extend in the
Zio low valley which appears for the residents a favorable site to conclude
their activities without much constraint (public taxes, authorities'
orders...). The activities which prevail and concentrate a strong population
are: agricultural activities, breeding, gravels extraction, taking away of
sediments, fishing and drives out (bush fires), waste incineration and draining
of latrine, wood exploitation, habitat construction and infrastructures
(bridges, roads, agricultural hydro dams, electric posts, channels and sewers,
automobile parks, drilling of prospecting, factories etc...).
These activities in their execution disturb the balance of the
basin environment in several manners in particular by deforestation, pollution,
uncontrolled occupation or tenure; their main common causes are:
- Demographic pressure, it is explained by,
the strong populations migration in land use research, the keen wood demand
source of energy not only for domestic use but also to satisfy the needs for
the local industrial trooper activities (fish smoked, distillation of any
nature etc..) and for the habitat construction;
- Incomes dropping, capacity purchase in
falling, riverside residents, rural and urban populations surrounding think of
balancing equation budgetary for hearths by receipts on the basin and the river
natural resources.
4.1 Deforestation Main causes are:
- Burn on itinerant agriculture, ancestral
technical which is crossing entirely or cutting a forest, and let dry the
vegetation, then to put the fire of cleaning before the first rains. The piece
is cultivated during two or three years, limiting of exhaustion of the reserves
of the stripped ground what obliges the peasant to clear another. Thus, several
hundreds hectares of basin natural vegetations disappear each year;
- Forests relics use, residents and large
owners are identified main persons in charge. Bringing back easy profit
exploitation always does not respect the forest legislation into force. It is
done in the form of heat wood production, of saw log and charcoal. Also, it can
be mentioned exploitation for medicinal use but this although concerning
certain threatened species does not appear to have a dominating influence in
the forest degradation;
- Gravel pits anarchic exploitation, the
marketing of the gravel pits is today capital for the area economy. Open cast
mining of the careers requires the systematic demolition of all vegetation
which is there followed clearing of the ground covering. This is gradually
transported in the river bed by surface waters.
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