The “Great Green Wall” Didn’t Stop Desertification, but it Evolved Into Something That Might
The multibillion-dollar effort to plant a 4,000-mile-long wall of trees hit some snags along the way, but there’s still hope.
It was a simple plan to combat a complex problem. The plan: plant a Great Green Wall of trees 10 miles wide and 4,350 miles long, bisecting a dozen countries from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. The problem: the creeping desertification across Africa.
Reij, Garrity and other scientists working on the ground knew what…political leaders did not: that farmers in Niger and Burkina Faso, in particular, had discovered a cheap, effective way to regreen the Sahel. They did so by using simple water harvesting techniques and protecting trees that emerged naturally on their farms.
Slowly, the idea of a Great Green Wall has changed into a program centered around indigenous land use techniques, not planting a forest on the edge of a desert. The African Union and the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization now refer to it as "Africa’s flagship initiative to combat land degradation, desertification and drought." Incredibly, the Great Green Wall—or some form of it—appears to be working.
Eleven countries are planting a wall of trees from east to west across Africa, just under the southern edge of the Sahara desert.
Many other countries are helping. The entire Organization for African Unity (OAU), several UN organizations, Europe, China…not Trump, obviously. He has seemingly never heard of anything good coming from Africa, especially not ideas. Like the idea of fixing African economies and environmental problems, and reducing the flow of climate refugees.
CNN, 2016: Can the Great Green Wall change direction?
The purpose was to provide a mighty barrier against the advance of the Sahara, and to reverse the plague of desertification spreading drought, famine and poverty through the Sahel region.
The Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative (GGWSSI) has since gained rocket boosters. Today, the Initiative has 21 African countries participating, over $4 billion of pledged funding, and heavyweight partners from the World Bank to the French government.
The projects has sky-high ambitions; to restore 50 million hectares of land, provide food security for 20 million people, create 350,000 jobs, and sequester 250 million tons of carbon.
Work is already well underway. The GGWSSI recently claimed that 15% of trees have been planted, largely in Senegal, with four million hectares of land restored.
Now it is more than $8 billion.
Trees
The Green Wall is mainly being made out of three native or long-naturalized African tree species. They will provide shade for shrubs and other undergrowth, and for crops.
Trees to Halt the Desert
Desert Date Palm Tree
Balanites aegyptiaca (L.) Delile
(Family: Zygophyllaceae)
This tree can live for 2 years without water. It is resistant to brushfires thanks to its thick bark, and can live for over 100 years in harsh conditions. This makes it an excellent candidate to withstand the desert's onslaught! It also makes itself useful to people in various ways, by providing fruit, fodder, raw materials for construction or craftsmanship...
Wikipedia: Balanites aegyptiaca
Balanites aegyptiaca is found in the Sahel-Savannah region across Africa. It can be found in many kinds of habitat, tolerating a wide variety of soil types, from sand to heavy clay, and climatic moisture levels, from arid to subhumid. It is relatively tolerant of flooding, livestock activity, and wildfire.
The yellow, single-seeded fruit is edible, but bitter. Many parts of the plant are used as famine foods in Africa; the leaves are eaten raw or cooked, the oily seed is boiled to make it less bitter and eaten mixed with sorghum, and the flowers can be eaten. The tree is considered valuable in arid regions because it produces fruit even in dry times.
All parts of the tree and its fruit have uses, including food, animal fodder, oil for soap, medicines, building, and furniture-making.
Acacia
Acacia senegal, Acacia seyal
Senegalia senegal (until recently known as Acacia senegal) is a small thorny deciduous tree from the genus Senegalia, which is known by several common names, including Gum acacia, Gum arabic tree, Sudan gum and Sudan gum arabic. In parts of India, it is known as Kher or Khor. It is native to semi-desert regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Oman, Pakistan, west coastal India. It grows to a height of 5–12 m, with a trunk up to 30 cm in diameter. Sudan is the source of the world's highest quality gum arabic, known locally as hashab gum in contrast to the related, but inferior, gum arabic from Red acacia or talah gum.
Vachellia seyal, the red acacia, known also as the shittah tree (the source of shittim wood), is a thorny, 6–10 m (20–33 ft) high tree with a pale greenish or reddish bark. At the base of the 3–10 cm (1.2–3.9 in) feathery leaves there are two straight, light grey thorns, growing to 7–20 cm (2.8–7.9 in) long. The blossoms are displayed in round, bright yellow clusters approximately in 1.5 cm (0.59 in) diameter.
Jujube
Wikipedia: Ziziphus mauritiana
Ziziphus mauritiana, also known as Chinese date, ber, Chinee apple, jujube, Indian plum, Regi pandu, Indian jujube, dunks (in Barbados) and masau, is a tropical fruit tree species belonging to the family Rhamnaceae.
Ziziphus mauritiana is a spiny, evergreen shrub or small tree up to 15 m high, with trunk 40 cm or more in diameter; spreading crown; stipular spines and many drooping branches. The fruit is of variable shape and size. It can be oval, obovate, oblong or round, and can be 1-2.5 in (2.5-6.25 cm) long, depending on the variety. The flesh is white and crisp. When slightly underipe, this fruit is a bit juicy and has a pleasant aroma. The fruit's skin is smooth, glossy, thin but tight.
The species is believed to have originated in Indo-Malaysian region of South-East Asia. It is now widely naturalised throughout the Old World tropics from Southern Africa through the Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent and China, Indomalaya, and into Australasia and the Pacific Islands. It can form dense stands and become invasive in some areas, including Fiji and Australia and has become a serious environmental weed in Northern Australia. It is a fast-growing tree with a medium lifespan, that can quickly reach up to 10–40 ft (3 to 12 m) tall.
Really? A weed that grows commercially desirable fruit? I wonder how weedy it will be in the Sahel, and how much that will contribute to the goals of the project. I wonder what sort of jujube products could be produced for export. Well, I'm not going to look that up today, but feel free to comment.
Other trees are being proposed for the Wall, either because they are drought-tolerant and good for restoring soils, or because they can flourish where the first generation has prepared the way.
Seed Banks
Africa's Great Green Wall - towards a sustainable future
To highlight UNESCO’s World Science Day for Peace and Development on November 10th, Serene Hargreaves from the Millennium Seed Bank describes how Kew is working with communities in sub-Saharan Africa to build a ‘Green Wall’ that will contribute to their sustainable future.
The greatest seed bank in healthy ecosystems is the soil, which can harbor seeds in bad years and support them sprouting when conditions improve.
UN Food and Agriculture Organization: Africa’s Great Green Wall: A transformative model for rural communities’ sustainable development
FAO has supported the Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative, since its launch in 2007, as a game changer for Africa, given its potential to address climate change adaptation and mitigation, prevent and combat desertification, eradicate poverty, end hunger and boost food and nutrition security. With the generous support of donors such as the European Union, FAO has become a key technical partner in building this programme of opportunities for Africa’s drylands and its people.
Through the EU-funded Action Against Desertification (AAD) project, FAO’s efforts are focused on supporting six African countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Gambia, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal) in implementing their GGW National action plans. As a result, a comprehensive approach for large-scale land restoration — one that places rural communities at its heart— has led to on the ground interventions in an estimated 12,000 hectares of degraded lands between 2015 and 2017.
The impact has been sustained by developing the capacity of local communities to become self-supporting in technical activities, such as better management of their production systems, conservation of biodiversity, and in socio-economic activities such as the production and processing of forest products benefiting their livelihoods.
Although the Great Green Wall initiative is still far from completing the development of a great mosaic of green and productive landscapes, where communities can thrive. FAO’s approach to large-scale restoration is seen as a transformative model for rural community development, hand in hand with the transformation of the landscapes they live in. The methodology and lessons learned from its application can lead the way for implementation of the new commitment African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) in particular in the restoration of those degraded lands difficult to regenerate naturally because of the loss of soil seed banks.
This Seed Bank Preserves Biodiversity by Opening Its Doors to Farmers
The Ethiopian institution pioneered a new model.
Scientists recognize Ethiopia as one of the world’s eight Vavilov centers of crop diversity. The Gaia Foundation for the documentary “Seeds of Justice”
Seeds Of Africa
Millennium Seed Bank (Kew + SANBI)
Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP) is an international ex situ plant conservation project aiming to collect and conserve seeds from 25% of the world’s orthodox plant species by 2020.
The Project collaborates with partner organisations across 50 countries including South Africa. It has been in partnership with the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) for the past fifteen years.
Climate-smart community seed banks conserve and share essential farm biodiversity resources
Countries
Senegal
Atlas Obscura: Dakar, Senegal
The Great Green Wall of Africa
Thus far, only 330 miles of greenery stand guard in Northern Senegal, costing the Sengalese government over $6 million since the start of digging in 2008.
Mauritania; Mali; Burkina Faso
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Great Green Wall cross-border pilot project (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger)
As part of this larger initiative, Kew is coordinating a GGW cross border pilot project across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, developed under Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership. The project aims to build a model for the restoration of large-scale agrosylvopastoral systems throughout the Sahel region.
This project involves a network of collaborators, from local community groups and environmental non-government organisations to forestry officials and government officers. In engaging with these stakeholders, Kew is focusing on the technical and cultural aspects of land restoration as well as the scientific elements. Ultimately, the local communities involved must be convinced of the tangible benefits of the GGW for them in terms of their livelihoods and well-being, for the project to be successful in the long-term.
The approach taken combines the reintroduction of native trees and shrubs in a restoration framework which includes the economic and ecological rehabilitation of traditional agroforestry systems. We have paid attention to selecting the most useful species to consider for the restoration activities, ensuring local community participation in the decision-making, and the type of techniques that can be used to improve and accelerate restoration (plantations, fencing, Assisted Natural Regeneration). In parallel, surveys have been undertaken to determine possible long-term socio-economic outcomes triggered by the project.
Our project will allow us to understand which species perform better and the potential they generate for household income increase; in addition, we anticipate that the biotic and socio-economic data generated will also help with the design and implementation of other larger-scale restoration projects in similar contexts.
Here is another variation on half-moon pits. The reason for digging only half of a circle is to allow rainwater to collect in the pit, which is always dug on the downhill side.
How digging half moons helps farmers in Burkina Faso
- Find the direction water will flow when it rains.
- Draw a 4-meter line. Create a curved line connecting the two ends of the line. The curved side must be downhill from the straight side.
- Dig 15 to 30 centimeters (cm) deep in the soil inside the half-moon.
- Pile the soil on the edge of the arc at a height of 5 to 10 cm. (For extra support, put rocks on the curved edge.)
- Put a pile of organic manure inside the half moon.
- Mix the manure into the soil.
- Plant seeds in the half moon after it rains.
Niger
CNN, link above
Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet its farmers have been able to revive vast tracts of arid land with minimal investment.
"Niger has seen the largest positive transformation in the whole of Africa," says Chris Reij, a sustainable land management specialist and Senior Fellow of the World Resources Institute, who has worked for decades in the Sahel.
The farmers of Niger practice natural regeneration of the land, using innovative practices such as reviving the roots of plants and trees, and digging "half-moon" pits to store water. Trees destroyed during droughts are allowed to recover over years, and then carefully maintained.
These methods have succeeded in restoring five million hectares of land, and around 200 million trees. Reij estimates this delivers an additional 500,000 tons of cereal grain a year, which is enough to feed 2.5 million people. The investment amounted to less than $20 per hectare.
A critical factor was the weakness of the Niger government, says Reij, which allowed farmers to reclaim trees that had previously been the property of the state, and restore them to health. He is convinced that success must come from the bottom up, rather than through top-down interventions.
Nigeria
National Agency for the Great Green Wall
- Establishment of 241km shelter belt
- Establishment of 120ha community woodlots
- Establishment of 250ha community orchards
- Establishment of 92 community tree nurseries
- Identification of over 500 farmers to be trained and participate in the on farm natural regeneration project
Rural Infrastucture
Provision of 92 solar and wind powered boreholes to ameliorate the impact of drought and provide water for the people and livestock
Development in these projects will occur squarely in the area of the northern Muslim Hausa population, which has been deeply suspicious of the much more Christian regions to their south. The worst incidents were the kidnapping of many girls by Boko Haram, and the earlier murders of health workers in the polio vaccination program. A Muslim cleric announced that it wasn't for protection from disease, but was going to sterilize all young Hausa men. Since then many villages have been visited by men who had the vaccination, together with their children, to debunk this nonsense. Accordingly, polio is nearly gone from Nigeria.
I cannot say how much Nigeria's Green Wall programs in the north might defuse such tensions. It takes a lot more than this.
Chad
Sudan; Ethiopia; Eritrea; Djibouti
Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti to restore over 3000 hectares of land in 2019
Djibouti said it plans to restore 100 hectares of degraded land this year, while Sudan announced its plans to restore over 4 000 hectares, of which 750 hectares will be planted to initiate restoration in Wad-Elhalaw locality of South Kordofan, home to over 125 000 people.
Eritrea said it sets out to restore over 1000 hectares of degraded land, of which 300 hectares in the localities of Maimene, Hagaz and Laelay Gash, benefiting some 530 households.
Ethiopia committed to restore 1 500 hectares of degraded land in addition to its on-going restoration work on 500 hectares in the Amhara and Tigray regions.
Moreover, the Kenyan Genetic Resources Research Institute, an AAD partner operating under the National Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, will provide critical support to countries by supplying quality seeds of well-adapted species suitable to the drylands of Eastern Africa.
Yes, they are starting small. These are seriously poor countries, held back by long histories of terrorism and civil war.
More Tree News
The Great Green Wall in China
[D]espite China’s massive commitment to reforestation, desertification is increasing. Part of the problem is that the land-use practices that led to vegetation loss and soil instability are continuing. Another part of the problem is that Chinese planners are making the same mistakes made in the U. S. and in other arid regions where managers used nonnative plants to replace depleted natives.
Could military strategy win the war on global warming?
Turkey Will Declare a Holiday Dedicated to Planting Trees After Young Man’s Tweet Goes Viral
India previously held the world record for planting the most trees in one day with 49.3 million saplings in Uttar Pradesh in 2016, and that one-day record was smashed in July 2017 with 66 million trees planted—by India again, in Madhyar Pradesh.
Iceland tries to bring back trees razed by the Vikings
When seafaring Vikings set off from Norway and conquered the uninhabited North Atlantic island at the end of the ninth century, forests, made up mostly of birch trees, covered more than a quarter of the island.
Within a century, the settlers had cut down 97 percent of the original forests to serve as building material for houses and to make way for grazing pastures.
The Icelandic government has made afforestation one of its priorities in its climate action plan, published in September 2018.
Since 2015, between three and four million trees have been planted in Iceland, the equivalent of about 1,000 hectares.
That, however, is only a drop in the ocean compared to the six to seven million hectares planted in China over the same period.
Birch makes lousy bows and arrows, BTW. But if that's all you (and your enemies) have…
Note
This Diary started as a comment in Good News Roundup for July 5, 2019: This Is Our Country.
Oh, is this ever going to be a Renewable Friday Diary.
Thanks, Gnusies.
BTW, one of their sources is Good News Network. Part of the Good News is, Good News is good for you! And marinating in nonstop bad news harms your brain. We believe that passing on Good News is even better for you, and everybody your news reaches. So republish where appropriate, post links, rec, tip, tweet, refute laughable climate trolls on Quora, whatever works for you. Now I must go and submit this Diary for their consideration at GNN.