See the $36 billion Great Green Wall in Africa that's an attempt to hold back desertification

Jenny McGrathMay 1, 2024, 00:03 IST

Since 2007, a variety of projects have started as part of the Great Green Wall, including growing gardens in Senegal.Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

The Great Green Wall is a project to restore degraded land in nearly two dozen African countries.
Deforestation, agricultural expansion, and drought have caused desertification across the continent.

Over the past several decades, deforestation, agricultural expansion, and drought have all contributed to desertification in parts of the African continent. Once-fertile soil has become drier and less productive.

More than a dozen African countries have been fighting this desertification with an ambitious project to grow trees and other vegetation on 247 million acres of degraded land, an area roughly 2.3 times the size of California.

The goals of the 17-year-old Great Green Wall project — estimated to cost between $36 to 49 billion — also include generating 10 million jobs and sequestering 250 million tons of carbon by 2030.

Countries from Senegal to Djibouti are trying to regreen the semiarid Sahel bioclimate, a band stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

The dangers of land degradation include soil erosion and lessened biodiversity.

Side-by-side images of the Ferlo region of Senegal in 1994 and 2011 show land degradation over nearly 20 years.G. Gray Tappan/US Geological Survey

The Great Green Wall initiative launched in 2007 as a plan to plant trees across a large swath of the African continent.

The Sahel is a bioclimate stretching across the African continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.Rainer Lesniewski/iStock/Getty Images

The GGW project hit some early snags.

Some trees planted as part of the GGW didn't survive because they were located in uninhabited areas.Seydou Diallo/AFP via Getty Images

Niger and Burkina Faso found success with different approaches outside the GGW project.

After droughts in the last century, farmers in parts of Niger started returning to traditional practices to keep soil fertile.Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

The GGW isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.

A Tolou Keur circular garden in Boki Diawe, in Matam region, Senegal, part of the Great Green Wall.Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

The GGW is now a mosaic instead of a wall of trees.

The Sahel village of Ndiawagne Fall in Kebemer, Senegal is part of the Great Green Wall project, which originally focused on planting trees across the Sahel.Leo Correa/AP Photo

The project incorporates technology like drones and satellite imagery.

Satellite imagess, like this one from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, can help track the progress of the GGW.European Space Agency

Many countries have seen success regreening areas of the Sehal.

An expanse of trees outside the Walalde department in Senegal.Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

With 2030 approaching, the GGW is facing setbacks.

Some countries like Sudan haven't been able to make as much progress on GGW goals due to unrest and less funding.Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

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