Editing West Africa (section)

===Deforestation===

{{Further|Deforestation in Nigeria}}
West Africa is greatly affected by [[deforestation]] and has one of the worst deforestation rate.<ref name="ThoughtCo"/> Even "the beloved baobab tree" which is viewed as sacred by some West African cultures are under threat due to [[climate change]], [[urbanization]] and population growth. "Huge swaths of forest are being razed to clear space for palm oil and cocoa plantations. Mangroves are being killed off by pollution. Even wispy [[acacia]]s are hacked away for use in cooking fires to feed growing families."<ref name="New York Times"/> Nigeria, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, have lost large areas of their [[rainforest]].<ref>Deforestation by Country & Region ("Country Forest Data [sorted by region]") [in] [https://data.mongabay.com/deforestation_rate_tables.htm Mongabay.com] (Retrieved 2 April 2019)
</ref><ref>''Rainforest Destruction'' [in] rainforestweb.org. Archived by [[Wayback Machine]] – [https://web.archive.org/web/20090205200836/http://rainforestweb.org/Rainforest_Destruction/] (Retrieved 2 April 2019)</ref> In 2005, the [[Food and Agriculture Organization]] of the United Nations ranked [[Deforestation in Nigeria|Nigeria as the state with the worst deforestation rate]] in the entire world. Causes include logging, [[subsistence agriculture]], and the collection of fuelwoods.<ref>[[Mongabay|Mongabay News]], ''Nigeria has worst deforestation rate, FAO revises figures'' (17 November 2005) by Rhett A. Butler, [http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1117-forests.html] (Retrieved 2 April 2019)</ref>

According to a [[ThoughtCo]] publication authored Steve Nix (2018), almost 90 percent of West Africa's original rainforest has been destroyed, and the rest is "heavily fragmented and in a degraded state, being poorly used."<ref name="ThoughtCo">[[ThoughtCo]], ''The Territory and Current Status of the African Rainforest'' by Steve Nix (4 November 2018) [https://www.thoughtco.com/african-rainforest-1341794] (Retrieved 2 April 2019)</ref>