Awareness is growing throughout the world of the grave environmental damage that has been caused by human activities ad of the disastrous consequences such damage may pose for human survival. The 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro marked the culmination of a series of preliminary ministerial conferences in Africa and elsewhere that called attention to practices menacing the environment. Africa's underdevelopment is at the basis of practices leading to desertification, deforestation, and pollution. The summit was of great relevance for Africa because of its recognition of the links between the environment, development, and poverty. The phenomena of drought and desertification in the Sahel are insufficiently understood. The drought began in the 1960s and has persisted irregularly into later decades. Scant rainfall may cause the useful growing season to be shorter than the minimum of 2.5-3 months needed to assure harvests. Meager vegetation, drying of domestic water sources, and the danger of erosion from violent rainstorms are among the consequences of drought. Desertification occurs when the natural vegetation is exploited excessively, when agriculture is extended into marginal lands, and when inappropriate agricultural and herding practices make the land vulnerable to erosion. Populations beset by poverty and drought engage in practices for short-term survival whose longterm consequences may be very harmful. The Sahel Institute in Bamako has outlined a regional strategy to combat desertification that calls for improving collection and conservation of surface and subsoil water, reforestation and more careful management of land and other resources, motivating local populations to assist in preventing deforestation, fertility control to lessen population pressure, and development of a database to monitor the dynamics of desertification. The European Economic community and some conservation associations have also developed conservation programs for the Sahel. Degradation of the tropical forests must be considered irreversible because of climatic factors, erosion, and loss of fertility. Abusive exploitation of the tropical forests is a principal socioeconomic phenomenon of contemporary Africa. Forest policies must end the degradation, repair the decision making. 56% of the total energy consumed in Africa is from wood and charcoal. But the collection of firewood and deforestation are complexly linked. Deforestation results from numerous factors including imbalance between population growth and the system of natural resources, the need for new lands, and the expansion of cities. Several African countries are attempting to subsidize firewood needs through management of forests and reforestation with the collaboration of the rich countries.