US $1.2 million voted for commission

A 903.97-million-franc CFA (US $1.2 million) budget for 2002 has been voted for the Lake Chad Basin Commission, the organisation reported on Wednesday. The budget was voted in during the organisation's 14-15 January meeting in Yaounde, the Cameroonian capital. In their final communique, the commissioners of the six-nation body also said they were satisfied with the results of two technical meetings on the project to reverse land and water degradation trends of the lake's ecosystem. They said that efforts should be made to "kick off" an integrated pest management project in rain-fed agriculture as soon as possible. They also expressed satisfaction that Niger and Chad had declared their portions of the lake "wetlands of international importance", or Ramsar sites. They urged Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Nigeria to do likewise before the organisation's 11th summit this year, in Niger. The commissioners also decided that $1 million, contributed by member states, should be used to support the feasibility study of an "inter-basin water transfer" project. A team of ministers from Cameroon CAR, Niger are to consult the commission's current chairman, the President Ange-Felix Pattase of CAR, in obtaining the accord of the two Congos for the implementation of the project. In a paper titled "Human impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin", Michael Coe and Jonathan Foley said drier climates and high agricultural demand were the reasons for the lake's dramatic shrinkage. "Lake Chad was about 25,000 square kilometres in surface area back in 1963," Foley noted. Now the lake is about one-twentieth its size in 1960. More information available at www.newswise.com/articles/2001/2/CHAD.GSC.html