The GGWSSI is listening to the experts and adapting its approach

 

Photo credit: CNN

The effects of farmer managed natural regreening in Niger.

Can the Great Green Wall change direction?

By Kieron Monks, for CNN

(CNN)A 7,700-kilometer wall of trees, running through 11 countries along the southern frontier of the Sahara Desert.

That’s what the African Union proposed in 2007, a “Great Green Wall” that was to be the largest living structure on the planet.

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.

But the grand vision rests on a suspect premise.

Desert diagnosis

There is a consensus among scientists that that the Sahara Desert is not advancing.

“The southern edge of the Sahara Desert moves up and down according to long-term climate cycles,” says Dr. Jonathan Davies, head of the Global Drylands Initiative at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “The data shows that over the last 20-30 years it has actually retreated north by about 200 kilometres.”

Read the full article: CNN