The Great Green Wall
The Great Green Wall is an African-led project which originally planned to grow a living wall of acacia trees spanning the entire width of Africa in order to reverse desertification. This process would provide food, jobs and a future for millions of people who live in a region on the forefront of climate change. The Great Green Wall would be the largest living structure on Earth and a global symbol for positive environmental change and since the project started in 2007, greenery has started coming back to the land, bringing greater food security, jobs and stability.
However, there is evidence that planting trees in this way is an inefficient approach to land restoration with a previous project in the Sahel region finding that âeighty percent of trees died within two monthsâ (CNN, 2016) without sufficient water or protection. These concerns are redefining the nature of the Great Green Wall project as a patchwork of greening tailored to local conditions, rather than a huge forest.
There are twenty-one African countries participating in the project, with over âfour billion dollarsâ (ibid) of pledged funding, and international partners from the World Bank to the French government. The project plans to restore fifty million hectares of land, providing food security for twenty million people, creating 350,000 jobs, and isolating âtwo hundred and fifty million tons of carbonâ (ibid) âFifteen percentâ (ibid) of trees have already been planted, largely in Senegal, with four million hectares of land restored.
However, Niger has seen the largest positive impact by using conservation techniques such as reviving the roots of plants and trees, and digging half-moon pits to store water. Trees destroyed during droughts are allowed to recover naturally over time and then are carefully maintained. These methods have succeeded in restoring five million hectares of land and approximately two hundred million trees which should deliver â500,000 tons of cereal grain per year; enough to feed 2.5 million peopleâ (ibid).
Bibliography: Monks, k. (2016) Can the Great Green Wall change direction? Available at: Â http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/22/africa/great-green-wall-sahara/index.html (Accessed 10/12/2017)














