Read at : Google Alert – desertification
http://www.mysinchew.com/node/59144
Africa’s tree belt takes root in Senegal
by Stephane Barbier
TESSEKERE, Senegal, June 21, 2011 (AFP) – An ambitious plan to build a vast forest belt straight across Africa to contain desertification has taken root in Senegal, greening huge tracts of land with drought-tolerant tree species.
From west to east, the 15-kilometer-wide Great Green Wall (GGW) will span the continent from Senegal to Djibouti, passing through Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
In all, the coast-to-coast forest will run 7,600 kilometers (4,750 miles).
“It is a crazy project, but a touch of madness helps when conceiving something which has never been conceived,” Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said when he launched GGW at a conference of Sahel countries in 2005.
Work on Senegal’s section has made rapid progress since planting began in 2008, with various species of acacia trees stretching over 535 kilometers, covering around 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) surrounded by 5,000 kilometers of firewalls.
The idea of erecting a great wall of trees to stop the southward spread of the Sahara came amid UN forecasts that two thirds of Africa’s farmland may be swallowed by Saharan sands by 2025.
International agencies have pledged to invest more than three billion dollars in building the wall.
In Senegal, the GGW is currently being funded almost entirely by the government to the tune of 1.4 million euros ($2.1 million) annually, but additional funding is expected from the European Union.
Some 140 million euros will be needed to complete the Senegalese section, which runs through the northern Tessekere-Widu rural region, according to Matar Cisse, head of the national GGW agency.
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