Africa has lost more than 65 percent of its Savannah landscape which is home to important wildlife
As it happens, all the wildlife species that people usually associate with Africa, including Lions, Elephants and Wild Dogs reside in the Savannah and have thus lost both their home and world stealthily.
Black News 
Africa has lost more than 65 percent of its Savanna landscape.
Reports indicate that the continent has seen much of its Savannah land being slowly but surely converted to other uses gradually for 126 years since 1900.
According to the WildLens Chronicles, this is the largest Biome Conversion in Human History.
As it happens, all the wildlife species that people usually associate with Africa, including Lions, Elephants and Wild Dogs reside in the Savannah and have thus lost both their home and world stealthily.
Coming up on the 5th of June 2026 is yet another instalment of the World Environment Day and this also will not address the issue either.
And while most of the world still thinks of Africa as being a wild expanse, the reality is that much of the continent is now farmland, human settlements and industrial parks.
The African savanna comprises both woodland savanna (Miombo) and open grassland and is the largest biome on the continent.
Historically covering approximately 13.5 million square kilometers in sub-Saharan Africa, the Savannah is the ecosystem that produces the wildlife spectacle associated with the continent, including the Serengeti migration, the Okavango Delta, Kruger Park and the rest of the great predator-prey systems.
This vast tropical grassland and woodland biome accounts for nearly half of the entire continent, stretching across more than 25 countries in Africa.
Studies indicate that, since 1900, approximately 65 percent of the landscape has been converted or significantly degraded, primarily to smallholder agriculture, livestock grazing, charcoal production, and urbanization.
The rate of conversion has accelerated in the 21st century as Africa’s human population grows.
But why does it receive less attention than tropical rainforest loss?
Savanna conversion is less dramatic-looking than forest clearance because in the latter, trees are fewer, the land looks “empty” after conversion.
The biodiversity metric for savanna is different from tropical forest comprising fewer species per hectare but often more spectacular megafauna
Also, conservation funding and media attention flows disproportionately to tropical forest
The consequences for savanna-dependent species:
— Lion: 67 isolated areas remaining (post 303). 94 percent range loss.
— African Wild Dog: 25 of 39 range countries now have zero population.
— Giraffe: all subspecies in significant decline, largely driven by habitat conversion.
— African Wild Ass: functionally extinct across most of its former savanna range.
The animals are famous. The habitat loss driving their decline is almost never the headline.
According to observers, if the savanna conservation receives a fraction of the funding and attention of tropical forest conservation and yet the wildlife that people care most about lives in the savanna … Isn’t there a mismatch between what people value and what gets protected?
