The Great Green Wall of Africa

Although the Sahara desert may be smaller than the Antarctic desert, unlike its frozen counterpart, the Sahara is actually expanding. And rapidly so.

The United Nations estimates that by 2025, two thirds of Africa’s arable land will be covered in Saharan sand. The effects of farmland destruction at any level would be devastating to a continent already hard-pressed for food.

The Great Green Wall is Africa’s flagship initiative to combat the effects of climate change and the resultant desertification as the Sahara desert creeps its way to expanding beyond its current nine million square kilometres. Led by the African Union, the plan has evolved from a simple line of trees from east to west bordering the desert to a mosaic of interventions and a programming tool for rural development.

Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti have joined forces in an unprecedented effort to stave off the impending catastrophe, planting a nine-mile wide forest of drought-resistant trees along the 4,750 mile long width of Africa. Planting began in Northern Senegal, costing the Senegalese government over $6 million for 330 miles of greenery, but international organisations have pledged over $3 billion to the wall of (mostly acacia) trees.

The idea originated with Richard St. Barbe Barker, who in 1954, proposed a ‘green front’ to act as a tree buffer to contain the desert. In 2002, the idea re-emerged in Chad at a summit on the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. Planting began in 2008, with the project intending to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, creating 10 million rural jobs and absorbing 250 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

As of March 2019, 15 percent of the wall is complete, with significant gains made in Nigeria, Senegal and Ethiopia—more than 11 million trees have been planted in Senegal alone, with Nigeria restoring 12 million acres of degraded land, and Ethiopia reclaiming 37 million acres.

In addition to physically planting trees along a border, farmers use simple water harvesting techniques to turn the Great Green Wall into a program centred around indigenous land use techniques. It’s no longer a literal wall: but the ‘mosaic’ of land use practices have the same effect.

But more than just growing trees and plants, the Great Green Wall is transforming the lives of millions of people in the Sahel region. It’s a wall of hope against abject poverty, growing food security for the millions that go hungry every day, according to the Great Green Wall Organisation. Importantly, the wall offers people a reason to stay for the millions living along its path, protecting local culture and heritage from the ravaging effects of climate change and climate-induced migration.

The Great Green Wall campaign is farmer-managed natural regeneration, giving the power back to the people to protect their environments. Once complete, the Great Green Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet at triple the size of the Great Barrier Reef.

‘You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain degree of madness… the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future.’

Thomas Sankara, president of Burkina Faso in 1985. ■

Sustainability

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