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Holding Back the Sahara
Senegal Helps Plant a Great Green Wall to Fend Off the Desert
By DIANA S. POWERSNOV. 18, 2014
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Women working in a drip-irrigated garden in Widou Thiengoly, Senegal. Credit UMI 3189
WIDOU THIENGOLY, Senegal
鈥?/p>
Old people in Widou Thiengoly say they can remember
when there were so many trees that you couldn鈥檛 see the sky.
Now, miles of reddish-brown sand surround this village in northwestern Senegal, dotted with
occasional bushes and trees. Dried animal dung is scattered everywhere, but hardly any dried grass
is.
Overgrazing and climate change are the major causes of the Sahara鈥檚 advance, said Gilles
Boetsch, an anthropologist who directs a team of French scientists working with Senegalese
researchers in the region.
鈥淭he local Peul people are herders, often nomadic. But the pressure of the herds on the land
has become too great,鈥?nbsp;Mr. Boetsch said in an interview. 鈥淭he vegetation can鈥檛 regenerate
itself.鈥?/p>
Since 2008, however, Senegal has been fighting back against the encroaching desert. Each
year it has planted some two million seedling trees along a 545-kilometer, or 340-mile, ribbon of
land that is the country鈥檚 segment of a major pan
-African regeneration project, the Great Green
Wall.
First proposed in 2005, the program links Senegal and 10 other Saharan states in an alliance
to plant a 15 kilometer-wide, 7,100-kilometer-long green belt to fend off the desert.
While many countries have still to start on their sections of the barrier, Senegal has taken the
lead, with the creation of a National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
Photo
A tree nursery for the Great Green Wall in Widou Thiengoly, Senegal. Credit Arnaud Spani