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The Great Green Wall project is an exciting and ground-breaking idea which aims to tackle one of the biggest threats facing Africa’s environment. If successful, the project will improve the lives of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa.

DESERTIFICATION IN AFRICA              

Desertification is one of the biggest threats to Africa’s environment and to its economy. It means the loss of land for farming, and therefore the loss of food and jobs. You can read more about it in the article what is desertification? (hyperlink)

The Sahara Desert is the world’s biggest desert, and it has spread by 10% in the last 100 years. Land is being seriously degraded in the Sahel region of drylands south of the Sahara Desert, and in drylands across Africa. This is making it harder and harder for people survive.

WHAT IS THE GREAT GREEN WALL?

The Great Green Wall Project aims to stop the spread of the Sahara by planting a wall of trees. By 2030, this wall will go all the way across the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. It will be 9 miles wide and 5000 miles long, crossing 11 countries from Senegal to Djibouti. It will be the largest living structure on Earth.

This incredible idea first began in the 1980s with Thomas Sankara, then president of Burkina Faso. Now it is headed by the African Union. It has received more than $3 billion of financial support from organisations including the European Union, the African Union and the World Bank.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

The band of trees will have huge benefits.

Firstly, it benefits the environment. Trees allow microbes to live. Microbes create fertile soil, which allows other life to grow and survive. This is a productive cycle, which also allows people to use the land for farming.

Furthermore, forests act as ‘carbon sinks’, which means that they remove and store a large amount of harmful carbon dioxide from the air. This is because trees take in carbon dioxide and give out the oxygen we then breathe. This is a benefit for nearby communities, and for the world.

The lives of nearby people will be transformed by the Great Green Wall. The project plans to create 20 million jobs in 11 different countries. There will also be more land suitable for living and for farming. Trees provide different resources for people’s livelihoods. For example, the Gum Arabic tree can be used in products such as chewing gum and fireworks.

So far, the Great Green Wall project is 15% complete. Twelve million trees have already been planted in Senegal. These trees are mostly acacias, a species which can survive long droughts. These new forests have already created hundreds of jobs, and are beginning to recreate fertile land from the desert.

HOW CAN WE HELP?

For the Great Green Wall to be successful, it is essential to understand its importance. A danger to the project is local people seeing new forests as a source of charcoal and firewood. It is important for us to appreciate the long-term benefits of planting forests and allowing them to grow over time. If this happens, the benefits and resources that will come from the Great Green Wall will transform the drylands and their communities.

Le  25 juin 2019

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