The shrub lands of the northwestern and southern tips of the continent have Mediterranean climates, with warm, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Unlike most of Africa, this climate supports distinctive types of temperate plant species. Mediterranean vegetation is xerophytic (drought-resistant), an adaptation to the limited rainfall and prolonged dry season that occurs during the summer months. The tree species typical of the North African shrub lands resemble those found elsewhere around the Mediterranean Sea, including wild olive, cork, juniper, and oak. Large areas of North African shrub lands have been damaged or destroyed through thousands of years of herding and agriculture. Environmental impact was pronounced during the 20th century, when rapid population increase and commercialization encouraged the expansion of agriculture into marginal, environmentally sensitive lands.

The Cape region of South Africa has a distinctive ecosystem known as fynbos, in which fine-leaved evergreen shrubs predominate. It is one of the richest plant life biomes in the world, with some 8,500 species of plants in a relatively small area of about 90,000 sq km (about 30,000 sq mi). Over two-thirds of the species are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. Distinct subtypes of fynbos occur along the coast and in the adjacent mountains. In several other parts of southern Africa infertile soils, fire, and a lengthy dry season constrain vegetation growth (MSN Encarta® Quote).

In Africas discontinuous areas of high mountains and uplands, altitude plays a significant role in determining climate and vegetation. On high peaks such as Kilimanjaro, vegetation changes as altitude increases: savanna vegetation near the base, then, in turn, zones of montane forest, bamboo, hagenia, heather, and high-altitude alpine moorland, with rock and ice at the summits of the very highest peaks. The montane forests include hardwood trees and many unusual plant species, including giant heather, giant groundsel, and giant lobelia. Growing conditions are also unusual due to the high temperatures during the day and very low temperatures that prevail at night. Some 4,000 species are associated with the African alpine zone, and three-quarters of these species are found only in Africas montane forests.

Other comparatively high-altitude regions have distinctive plant life. The highlands of Ethiopia contain scattered patches of montane forest with many species that resemble temperate deciduous trees. At higher elevations, tree cover largely disappearsexcept in deep valleysand grasses, sedges, and heathers prevail. In the highlands of South Africa above 1,100 m (3,500 ft), vast expanses of temperate grasslands occur. In the highest parts of the Ahaggar and Tibesti mountains of the Sahara, some plant species resemble those of the Mediterranean region, isolated there when the regions climate became drier thousands of years ago (MSN Encarta® Quote.)

Africa teems with animals of all shapes and sizes. The continent has thousands upon thousands of species of mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and insects. Many of these animals are linked in an intricate food web. For example, hippopotamuses deposit large amounts of nutrients in bodies of water where they rest and defecate; these nutrients support abundant growth of plants, insects, and other smaller creatures that in turn provide food for species higher in the food chain. Other animals are linked in symbiotic relationships, such as between big game animals and birds known as oxpeckers. These birds eat the ticks that pester the large animals. (MSN Encarta® Quote.)

Africa is seen by most people has a widely devastated continent.  It was said that African traditions were ruining the soil, until recently that was believed true, but these methods were also said to help create soil erosion and desertification.  Policy documents tried to sum up the whole continent in a general sense, which made things sound worse through-out the continent then they really were.  But really desertification and erosion vary throughout Africa. Trying to stop erosion Western Methods sometimes had no effect or had an adverse effect, but some African methods proved much more effective.  Going foreword with these methods scientists argue that these methods of preserving must follow the temporal and regional variations. 

The Sahel, a semiarid savanna region located to the south of the Sahara, experienced a severe drought in the 1960s to the early 1970s.  Due to this drought, Western scholars reacted propagated a popular view that the Sahara was expanding more and more year by year, relentlessly enveloping good farmland and once productive land.  With further research, it has been proven that the degradation varies with area, and there is no sign of a steady desert expansion.