Experts: Darfur Faces Environment Crisis

Graphic shows Darfur population and forestry statistics; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76.2 mm (Mike Sudal - AP)

Those herds destroyed fields and worsened soil erosion. With land being made unfit for farming, the Africans rebelled when the central government in Khartoum seemed indifferent to their plight.

On a recent morning in southern Darfur, camels grazed aimlessly on what used to be fertile fields. Village after village in the area lay destroyed and abandoned, with houses plundered and water pumps knocked down along the dirt track road winding across the arid landscape.

Nomads have cut down many of the trees in the war zone. Trees are crucial to farmers, because they help stabilize the soil and provide shade for crops. Without them, it will be even harder for farmers now in refugee camps to return to their villages.

In such a fragile environment, even steps designed to reduce human suffering are causing environmental problems.

With an estimated 200,000 people killed and 2.5 million left homeless by the conflict, international relief organizations set up vast camps to care for and protect those at risk.

Aid groups dug bore holes to provide water. Darfur's land is largely hard rock, so most of the scant rain that does fall during the June-September rainy season washes away, and the underground reserves are the only reliable water source. But the wells are depleting that water.

The problem has become so severe that some refugee camps in neighboring Chad may have to be moved soon. In El Fasher's Abu Shouk camp, seven bore holes have already dried up, according to a report by the British aid group Tearfund obtained by The Associated Press.

Furthermore, refugees are rapidly destroying forests around the camps by cutting trees for firewood. Refugees also use wood to reinforce the mud walls of their homes.

Many in the camps also earn money by producing mud bricks, which requires lots of water along with still more wood to fire the kilns. It takes the equivalent of 35 trees to bake bricks in just one kiln, the Tearfund report said.

In Abu Shouk, whole families _ including children who don't go to school _ could be seen digging hundreds of small holes in the sweltering heat in search of clay for bricks.

Behind them stood a large, barren sand dune that aid workers and conservationists said was covered by a trees only three years ago.

Once the war is over, families who attempt to return to their villages will require more scarce wood to rebuild their homes. A traditional family compound requires the wood from 30 to 40 trees, Tearfund says. That means 12 million to 16 million trees for the 2.5 million refugees, the report said.