Improvement of human impacts on the ecosystem...

What can be done?

1.     Hunting regulations: Since the environment is harsh, it is already extremely difficult for species, especially larger mammals, to survive. Hunting is and will continue to rapidly decrease the few existing species populations if regulations are not put into effect and strictly enforced.

2.     Water Oasis Preservation and Protection: The oasis areas in the Sahara are rare; however, they also attract the most attention for human exploitation and interference. Due to current threats of resource exploitation, including oil, they are vulnerable to significant human impact.

3.     Maintain Low Population Levels: The current status of the Sahara is good in many respects. Yet, the official status placed on the ecosystem is “vulnerable”. The Sahara desert is a very fragile ecosystem due to low levels of annual precipitation, lack of vegetation, and difficulty of species to survive the harsh weather conditions, especially in the central location of the desert. In order to maintain low human interference, it is important to keep the ecosystem unharmed by expanding populations and cities. If they started to intrude on the desert, it could greatly disrupt its scarce water resources and lead to extinction of its vulnerable species.

4.     Multinational Agreement: Since the Sahara Desert expands over many countries, the responsibility is shared to maintain and preserve this vulnerable ecosystem. In order to effectively do this, some sort of treaty/agreement should be put into effect immediately. This will ensure that no country is able to exploit resources or threaten the desert in hopes of benefiting their people or economy.