The Great Green Wall Continues to Address Climate Change
Trees sparsely populate the landscape of the Sahel. (Flickr)
The most powerful political figures in the world convened at COP26 in Glasgow to discuss the next steps for tackling climate change from October 31 to November 12. Meanwhile, farming villages 3000 miles away, in Niger and Burkina Faso, faced with the devastating effects of desertification, are taking climate change into their own hands by regreening a now-arid landscape.
The Sahara Desert is expanding at a rate of 48km per year, according to Earth.org. Such expansion, and the simultaneous growth and increased duration of droughts, have hampered the economic progress of the majority of Sahelian economies, which depend their on agricultural sectors for survival.
The African Union, in an attempt to address this problem, unveiled a new initiative entitled “The Great Green Wall” at a conference in 2007. The plan entails planting trees in a 5000-mile line across the Sahel, from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. They aim to accomplish this great feat by 2030.
One key problem, according to sustainable management specialist Chris Reij, is that “80 percent or more of planted trees have died.” Such decay can be blamed on a lack of precipitation and the absence of caretakers for the trees, given how sparsely populated much of the region is.
Moreover, only 4 percent of funding for the Great Green Wall has been met, and an estimated $43 billion remains. In addition, agricultural scientists have deemed the plan “a stupid way of restoring land in the Sahel,” according to Smithsonian Magazine.
After the initial implementation of the plan to expand the Sahel, failed farmers who depended on the region for agriculture decided to revitalize the plan themselves. Beginning in 2010, farmers began to use techniques that increased crop yield while also protecting the environment.
For decades, farmers in the Sahel have used zaï—a grid of deep, planting pits that enhance water retention and compost consolidation—to gradually make the land more fertile. This tactic resulted in a farmer-managed natural regeneration of trees that is preferable both to the methodical planting of tree saplings and to letting plantlife grow wild.
While climate change is to blame for the rapid desertification of the Sahel, ongoing inefficient and harmful farming techniques have also contributed to this problem. Farmers in the Sahel learned from French colonists to keep crops separate from trees. Moreover, from 1935 until 1990, any tree on a farmer's property was actually the property of the French government. Therefore, cutting down trees for fuel was illegal. The new technique of natural generation has proved impactful; the trees can be used for fuel, to feed livestock, and their leaves and fruit are edible, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
Prioritizing natural regeneration has also encouraged local and community-based initiatives. Since 2007, the Great Green Wall has evolved from a barrier of trees to smaller, more durable projects that look at agricultural issues on a micro-scale. Member of advocacy group SOS Sahel International Diegane Ndiaye commented, “The project that doesn’t involve the community is doomed to failure [and] we have had a lot of reforestation programs that today have not yielded much because it is often done with great fanfare and not with good planning,” according to Politico.
More than 12 million acres of trees have been restored in Niger and another 2 million in Mali. The success of local farmers and environmental scientists caught the attention of members at COP26, where African Development Bank President Akinwumi A. Adesina announced the bank’s commitment from the bank to mobilize $6.5 billion toward the Great Green Wall by 2025, according to AP.