Line in the sand

African states all around the Sahara have signed up to an ambitious Great Green Wall Initiative to combat desertification. The eventual result could be astonishing – rows of trees in a 15km wide belt stretching from Mauritania on the Atlantic coast to Djibouti on the Red Sea.

The plan was recently adopted at a summit meeting on rural development and food security in Benin. It draws on experience with the ‘green belts’ of trees used in North Africa, Senegal and elsewhere to protect cities and vital infrastructure from the encroaching sands. The Great Green Wall Initiative, however, envisages a linear tree defence around the whole desert fringe.

It’s a long-term proposition, of course. Tree planting won’t even begin until the completion of an initial two-year phase, devoted to setting up a knowledge-sharing network and promoting integration and co-operation between the various regions. 

Even the planting is barely half the battle. The saplings need to be nurtured – and protected, too. Environmental education will be a key factor – “sensitising the population to the importance of planting trees and taking care of them”, in the words of Joséa Dossou Bodjrènou, head of the Benin-based organisation Nature Tropicale. Otherwise, he told SciDev.Net, “they would destroy them without knowing it’s dangerous for the ecosystem. All this work would lead to nothing.”

Thinking along similar lines, the non-profit Observatory of the Sahara and the Sahel has recommended that payments for planting the trees should be linked to their subsequent growth, with part of the sum withheld for two years until the trees are established. – Susan Gransden

5 September 2008