The Great Green Wall project, which initially aimed to sow 100 million hectares of forest between Dakar and Djibouti, is evolving in the face of unconvincing results, particularly with the arrival of new countries such as Gambia. This small country is at the heart of international traffic in rare woods such as rosewood and wood cutting remains a frequent activity there.
With our correspondent in Banjul, Milan Berckmans
After a few blows with the shovel, Mariama Sallah, a 23-year-old teacher, pushes a baobab shoot into the ground and compacts the earth. For this volunteer, who comes from a family of farmers, planting trees is essential to limit the impact of drought on crops. ” My family, most of them are farmers, and due to climate change, some did not perform well during the rainy season. The way they produced before and now, it’s totally different “, she underlines.
Among the young shoots, an endangered species is replanted, that of rosewood. For Mariama, it is a way of raising awareness among communities not to cut this rare wood which is illegally trafficked in the country. ” If you are one of those who plant trees, you don’t feel like destroying them afterwards, or even if you see people destroying trees, you don’t encourage them adds Mariama Sallah.
Better integrate local communities
For its very first participation in this green wall, The Gambia is serving as a pilot project for a new version which must integrate local communities more directly, as Mariama Jabbie, coordinator of the NGO Green Up Gambia, points out: “ It means a lot to us to be able to realize one of the most ambitious projects in terms of climate change, the Great Green Wall. Of course, given our size, if we can do it completely in The Gambia, that means any country in Africa can do it. »
► To read also: Africa: the Great Green Wall, a solution that is struggling to materialize
Summary of the day: 1,000 trees planted for this community from the village of Kerewan, in the north of The Gambia. Six thousand others will follow this summer in the region. The country has set an ambitious goal of 32 million trees by 2030.