The progress and challenges of desertification prevention in Africa from the perspective of the “Great Green Wall”
2024-08-26
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Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 26 (Xinhua) -- Africa is the continent with the most serious desertification. According to data from the United Nations Environment Programme, about 45% of African land faces varying degrees of desertification, of which 55% is at risk of further desertification. In order to curb the expansion of the Sahara Desert, African countries have carried out desertification control with the "Green Great Wall" plan as the core in recent years, fully drawing on China's solutions and technologies for combating desertification, and have achieved remarkable results.
Africa's "Great Green Wall" has achieved results
The Sahel region is located south of the Sahara Desert and north of the Sudanese grasslands. Due to natural factors and human factors such as overgrazing and resource exploitation, it has become one of the most seriously desertified regions in Africa. In order to curb the southward expansion of the Sahara Desert, African countries have launched governance actions represented by the "Great Green Wall" plan. The African "Great Green Wall" plan was initiated in 2007 and is led by the African Union. In 2012, the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment adopted a regional coordination strategy for the implementation of the African "Great Green Wall" plan.
On June 5, 2023, maintenance personnel planted saplings at the site of a sand control project jointly carried out by the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the African Desertification Control Initiative of Nigeria in Kano State, Nigeria. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo JunThe initial goal of the "Great Green Wall" plan was to plant a 7,700-kilometer-long and 15-kilometer-wide vegetation belt in the Sahel region, connecting Senegal in the west and Djibouti in the east. Today, the plan has evolved into a comprehensive desertification control system with members extending to more than 20 countries and organizations. Its goal is to restore 100 million hectares of land, store 250 million tons of carbon, and create 10 million green jobs by 2030.
According to a report released by the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, 4 million hectares of land have been restored in the original planned area from 2007 to 2018. If the planned expansion area is included, a total of about 18 million hectares of land have been restored, and plant biomass has increased by 20% compared with 2007, creating 350,000 green jobs and generating $90 million in revenue. Countries with outstanding progress in land restoration are Ethiopia, Niger and Senegal.
China's experience in sand control boosts
Marcelan Sanou, senior director of the secretariat of the Pan-African "Great Green Wall" organization, said that the inspiration for building the African "Great Green Wall" came from China's "Three Norths" shelterbelt project, which stretches from Heilongjiang in the east to Xinjiang in the west. China has held several special seminars and construction technology training courses for African countries on the construction of the "Great Green Wall".
In 2017, the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was invited to sign a memorandum of cooperation with the Secretariat of the Pan-African "Great Green Wall" Organization to carry out cooperation in the fields of ecosystem monitoring, sustainable use of land resources, talent training, technology transfer, etc., to enhance the ability of African countries to prevent and control sand.
Lei Qiang, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Pan-African "Green Great Wall" Research Center, said that with the help of Chinese experts, the two sides have clarified the spatial and temporal pattern of the ecological environment in the African "Green Great Wall" construction area, revealed the dynamic process and development trend of desertification in the Sahel region, and identified sensitive areas and key governance areas for land degradation, vegetation damage, and wind and sand hazards; the two sides have preliminarily completed the African "Green Great Wall" desertification atlas and established an African "Green Great Wall" ecosystem management case library.
In terms of research and development, both parties focus on adapting to local conditions and integrating technical models of desertification prevention and control that are suitable for the local area, namely, desert city quicksand control model, desert highway sand hazard control model, hilly water collection and afforestation model, and degraded grassland restoration model.
For example, in response to the problems of grassland degradation and shrub invasion in Ethiopia, China and Africa have worked together to build a model of shrub grassland ecological restoration and sustainable livelihood development that combines "clearing shrubs and growing grass, closing off and rotating grazing, and combining grazing with animal husbandry," and the results of vegetation restoration have been remarkable.
In Mauritania, China has contributed technologies such as the selection and breeding of highly stress-resistant shrub and grass species, multi-scale sand-fixing grid combinations, and drip irrigation vegetation construction to sand prevention and control and quicksand management in the country's capital. China also proposed a "two zones and three belts" planning scheme for the construction of a protection system in the Mauritanian capital area, with gratifying results.
There are many challenges in advancing
According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Secretariat, to achieve the goal of restoring 100 million hectares of land by 2030, the restoration rate should be increased to 8.2 million hectares per year, which will cost $3.6 billion to $4.3 billion per year, a daunting task. The Convention Secretariat believes that the "Green Great Wall" plan faces challenges due to internal and external factors such as turbulent security situation, funding shortages, backward technology, large progress gaps among countries, and poor coordination.
Ten of the 11 founding countries of the "Great Green Wall" program are least developed countries. Insufficient funds have led to weak infrastructure construction such as irrigation systems and serious project delays.
Experts believe that African countries should strengthen technical training, create information sharing platforms, build consensus among the public, and give full play to the role of the people in forest maintenance, field data collection and evaluation.
Lei Qiang pointed out that desertification is a global problem. He hopes that through joint technical experiments, technical training, technical demonstrations and other forms of activities, a Chinese solution for building a "Green Great Wall" in Africa can be provided to allow desertification prevention and control to benefit mankind.
