Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

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Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat
desertification?

By Gavin Haines, Senegal
The Independent
June 16, 2013

Like most people living along the Sahel – the drylands
between Africa’s tropical savannahs and the Sahara Desert
– Mustafa Ba is all too familiar with the effects of
desertification.

Thanks to a combination of overgrazing and deforestation,
he has watched the countryside around his Senegalese
village, Mboula, turn into a dusty, unproductive
wasteland.

“Trees provide us with many benefits,” explains Mustafa,
as we sit on a mat in the centre of his village. “They
are good for the soil and important for food security.”

But in impoverished regions of rural Africa, selling
firewood is a source of quick cash and many trees along
the Sahel have been felled. Communities have paid a high
price for such enterprise; with no trees to protect the
land, vast swathes of the Sahel have succumbed to
desertification.

According to the United Nations, Mustafa is one of 850
million people – nearly one eighth of the global
population – to be directly affected by this process of
land degradation.

But it’s not just a local problem; desertification has an
impact on food production, which pushes up grocery bills
around the world (the UN estimates Guatemala alone loses
24 per cent of its agricultural GDP due to
desertification).  

To raise awareness of the issue, the UN reserved June 17
as World Day to Combat Desertification, but behind the
rhetoric it has also been supporting projects to tackle
the phenomenon head on. One of those is Great Green Wall
of Africa, a 4,800-mile “wall” of trees that is being
planted across the continent between Senegal and
Djibouti.  

It took years to secure funding for this ambitious
project but with the help of the African Union, European
Union, World Bank and other international investors, it
was approved in 2011. Mustafa was delighted.

“Instead of feeling alone facing this huge challenge of
desertification, we feel connected to the rest of Africa
and the outside world,” he says. “We knew we had to
protect the land, but the Great Green Wall programme has
helped provide us with technical assistance.”

Assuming the initiative is successful – detractors argue
that is a big assumption – the Green Wall will snake
through 11 countries and will form the backbone of a much
wider dryland restoration project involving more than 20
African nations. So far, nearly 12 million trees have
been planted in Senegal alone, but it’s not simply a case
of sowing seeds and hoping for the best.

“You need to plant the right species in the right place,”
says Nora Berrahmouni, a Forestry Officer for the UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO), as we drive through
rural Senegal. “And by species that doesn’t mean a tree
only – it could be a shrub or herbaceous plant. It’s
about mimicking nature.”

For the Green Wall to succeed, Nora adds, it is essential
the project involves and benefits local communities. To
illustrate her point we visit Tessekele, a 600-hectare
pilot site near the village of Widou. It’s a fairly
underwhelming spectacle; the dusty scrubland doesn’t look
particularly green, nor does it resemble a wall.

However, its spindly-looking acacia trees are rich in gum
arabic, a ubiquitous additive used in anything from
cosmetics to confectionary. Demand for this gum –
extracted from the acacia by cutting into the bark – is
currently outstripping supply thanks to an increase in
demand from Asia, Europe and the US. Consequently, prices
are rising and the trees are becoming more valuable
standing than felled. 

However, all trees play a vital role in agriculture, by
fertilising the soil and provide shade, and the Green
Wall project is trying to educate farmers about the
relationship between healthy environments and crops.  

“Taking care of the environment is perceived to be a
luxury,” says Michele Bozzano, a Research Support Officer
for Bioversity International. “But the difference between
having a stable environment and not is the difference
between being able to grow crops and crops failing.”

It’s not just agriculture that stands to benefit from a
healthier environment. “Wildlife has returned to the
site,” says Elimane Diop, the Chief Lieutenant of Widou,
as he shows me around Tessekele. “We’ve seen antelope,
hyena, porcupine and guinea fowl.”

The progress of the Green Wall is being monitored eagerly
by other nations, particularly Turkey. “We are interested
because in Turkey we are also suffering from
desertification,” says Ismail Belen, Deputy General
Director at Turkey’s Ministry of Forestry. “People ask me
how that’s possible when we don’t have a desert, but
desertification is not about the desert, it’s about land
degradation.”

Ismail is keen to learn lessons from the Green Wall,
which he romantically describes as a “modern-day Silk
Road, only green.” But not everyone shares his
enthusiasm; critics have expressed concerns about the
management of the project.

“The Green Wall is run from the top down and depends on
external management and external funds,” says Ced Hesse,
a Drylands Researcher for the International Institute for
Environment and Development (IIED). “And there is a
tenure issue – when you plant a tree who does it belong
to, who is going to look after it, who is going to
harvest the crop?”

The UNFAO disputes this and claims the project is
enfranchising local communities, although it does
acknowledge the threat of climate change – how will the
Green Wall survive in an area set to become drier and
warmer? Well, with technical support from Kew Gardens in
London, seed banks in Burkina Faso and Niger are giving
it the best possible chance, cultivating seeds from the
hardiest plants in Africa. “It’s about bringing back
resilient ecosystems that are able to adapt to a changing
climate,” says Nora. 

But can attitudes adapt fast enough? At a desertification
conference in Dakar recently, I entered the washrooms
after ambassadors from several Green Wall nations to find
the taps had been left running – in a nation short of
water. Admittedly these were the actions of a few, but it
doesn’t inspire confidence.

Mustafa Ba, on the other hand, does. Before the Green
Wall was even approved, he had started a campaign in
Mboula to fight desertification through the restoration
of local drylands. His scheme has since received support
from the Green Wall, but the natural regeneration that
has occurred here since is largely down to his efforts.

This bodes well because if ambitions environmental
projects like this are to succeed, they will need people
like him – hardworking, enfranchised locals – to make it
possible. “It really needs to happen at a local level,”
explains Nora. “If everyone does their bit, everyone is a
winner.”

More at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/behind-the-rhetoric-what-is-really-being-done-to-combat-desertification-8660978.html

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj

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