HS Environment “The world’s largest living structure” emerges in sub-Saharan Africa to fight the deadly spread of the desert, including Finnish forces

Great the ideas are appealing. Especially if they promise to solve many complex problems at once.

Vision of the Great Green Wall of Africa Great Green Wallista has received a lot of attention over the years.

In summary, the idea is this: To create a green zone of forests, savannas and other vegetation on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert that will prevent the desert from expanding as the climate warms. By combating desertification, the wall sequesters huge amounts of carbon dioxide, cools local climates and improves soil, water supply and food security.

At the same time, tens of millions of people could continue to live where they live today, and conflicts are diminishing. The area is inhabited mainly by either small-scale farming or livestock farming. These two groups are struggling with each other for dwindling natural resources. The spread of the desert kills in many ways.

An approximately 8,000-kilometer-long green buffer would extend from the Atlantic coast from Senegal to the Indian Ocean to Djibouti. The project website it is described as “the largest living structure in the world”.

Great ideas often also promise too much. The wall has grown slowly.

The idea of ​​a green wall was introduced by the sub-Saharan countries as early as 2005, and in 2007 it was endorsed by the African Union. Now, 17 years later, the project says it has achieved about 18 percent of its original goal.

Even lower percentages could end up. Senegalese geologist leading the Great Green Wall Abdoulaye Dia AFP recently estimated that 4.7 million hectares of soil have been restored to viability since 2005.

It is still quite a small part of the 100 million hectare target that green wall builders are aiming for by 2030.

The pace should be tightened.

UN and the African Union report released last fall according to two-thirds of Africa’s agricultural and livestock land has suffered from erosion and declining productivity. Overgrazing is common.

Climate change with its heat waves and heavy rains is exacerbating the problem. Nor will the situation be helped by the fact that, at least until 2050, the population of the Sahel will grow sharply.

Maybe just due to the escalation of climate and natural concerns, the old big idea has gained fresh vitality within a year of a significant spray.

The President of France Emmanuel Macron said at the Glasgow climate summit in November that promises of $ 19 billion in donations were raised for the project last year.

Funding promises were boosted by a One Planet meeting Macron convened in Paris a year ago in January. One of the biggest private backers is the dedicated CEO of Amazon, a U.S. company Jeff Bezos, which pledged $ 1 billion for anti-erosion projects in Africa.

In Glasgow, the European Union also promised support. The President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyenin According to the Commission, support from the Union is currently € 700 million a year and is set to increase.

“We support local communities, repair the environment and stop the loss of nature,” he said.

Desertification affects up to 45% of Africa’s land area. “That is why the fight against erosion is key to ensuring food security,” the EU leader said.

Green There are also Finnish forces building the wall – and supervising the construction work.

The founders of Soilwatch Eero Wahlstedt and Joona Mikkola answer a video call in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.

Soilwatch directs funding to projects related to sustainable land use. It will also assess their success through, among other things, satellite imagery and machine learning, as well as help to find agricultural and livestock practices that do not lead to desertification.

The work focuses specifically on sub-Saharan Africa.

Wahlstedt and Mikkola are both happy to bring the green wall to life.

“I see it as an extremely positive project,” says Mikkola. In his view, it is particularly positive that at the heart of the idea is the fateful link between respect for nature and human economic survival.

“You may still hear in aid circles that there is no time to think about nature when people are doing so badly. But if the majority of people in the region earn their living directly from nature, poverty can never be reduced if the country’s carrying capacity is reduced. ”

Instead, the partners are even a little amused by the project’s focus on marketing specifically for planting forests. Turning the Sahara into a forest is an idea that is easily sold to a financier from the north. However, it does not correspond to the local reality.

“Sahel is Arabic and means the coast,” Mikkola explains. It is an area where the sandy ocean of the Sahara is gradually becoming a greener continent. “Mainly there are tree and grass baths.”

Rainfall in the Sahel is so scarce that a hard forest is rarely a realistic goal. “The forest can be planted too, but the places have to be chosen carefully and the tree species have to be local,” Wahlstedt says.

However, that doesn’t mean there really isn’t much else to be done to make the lower Sahara look greener all the way to space.

One example is agroforestry i.e. arable forestry. It uses the field to grow food plants and trees at the same time. Trees bind soil and moisture and protect from toast.

Wahlstedt has been involved in projects to plant rubber acacia on smallholder arable land. The gum arabic they produce is used as an additive in foods, cosmetics and medicines, among other things.

“Such a tree makes more money upright than when felled, and that’s essential here,” Wahlstedt explains.

A simple way is also to protect the trees that are still standing in the savannah. In the Sahel, a lot of wood is felled into charcoal, which is then used for cooking. Therefore, for example, providing the local population with better-efficient, low-carbon stoves is an effective way of maintaining a green wall.

Secondary school geography lessons taught that near the equator, erosion is often irreversible. The layer of organic soil is many times thinner than in our coniferous forest zone. Once it is washed away, it is difficult to recover.

According to Mikkola and Wahlsted, there is a certain stern in this vicious circle, but the reality is actually more optimistic.

“Soil and nature have an incredible ability to recover if its decay is not constantly maintained by humans,” says Mikkola.

There is a seed bank of grasses left in the sand. When overgrazing, plant cultivation or other unsustainable activities cease, the grass cover grows back even with very little rainfall. Grasses, on the other hand, begin to give birth to new soil, which creates a basis for even stronger plants.

Mikkola is involved in a project to grow potatoes on the edge of the Sudanese sand desert. “They’ve grown tremendously in ten days.”