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Slow death of Africa's Lake Chad

By Andrew Bomford
BBC News, Lake Chad

Fisherman on Lake Chad
Lake Chad has shrunk from 15,000 to 500 sq miles in 40 years

One of the world's great lakes is disappearing. Lake Chad - shared by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger - has receded to less than 20% of its former volume. Global warming is being blamed, as well as water extraction.

The land is parched dry and dusty but the first hint that there is water comes with the growing numbers of Caltropis dotting the landscape.

These strange, twisted plants have deep tap roots, and where they grow water is usually not far away.

But it did not seem very close as we left the scruffy town of Baga in a battered four-wheel drive jeep, lurching from rut to rut across what was once the lake bed itself.

Just 30 years ago, water covered the whole area. Baga was a waterfront town. Now it is stranded many miles from the lake as the land around it becomes desert. The Sahara is moving southwards.

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