It is the death of a tireless defender of nature. Yacouba Sawadogo died this Sunday, December 3 in Ouahigouya, in the north of Burkina Faso, at the age of 77. The man acquired international fame when he managed to recreate a forest to counter the advance of the desert in his native region during the 1980s. Winner of numerous awards, he notably received the “Right Livelihood Award”, also called the alternative Nobel Prize, in 2018. Two years later, the UN Environment Program awarded him the Champions of the Earth prize.
3 mins
He was said to be silent, reserved, but Yacouba Sawadogo knew how to speak to the trees and the earth. This farmer, then trader, decided to return to his native land in the early 1980s to stop the advance of the desert. Desertification, drought, the Yatenga province suffered a decline in soil quality and field productivity. At that time, the area was affected by famine, people left, animals and trees died.
“ We had to consider a new way of farming. The good lands were disappearing and if we stayed here and did nothing, our lives were in dangerr,” said Yacouba Sawadogo.
Disappeared technique
Returning, the man observes the rain and the plants and decides to revive an ancestral cultivation technique that has partly disappeared with the modernization of agriculture: Zaï. It allows crops to grow in pits which retain rain and in which organic matter is deposited.
But Yacouba Sawadogo improves this practice. He prepares the land very early, well before the rains. He digs wider, deeper holes, adds stones to retain water, and surrounds himself with termites which help break up the hard soil and make it more fertile. A demanding technique, “ you have to get up early “, he said.
“Cloud Maker”
But the success is there. Despite the skepticism of his community and the taunts, through perseverance, Yacouba Sawadogo allowed an entire forest to grow back. The yield of the soil has improved, the farmers have returned to cultivate. He then took the nickname “the man who stopped the desert”. Its forest becomes a micro-climate. Fruits, vegetables, cereals, trees, plants, animals and even bees come back. To the point that the government decided to protect it.
Yacouba Sawadogo then tirelessly transmitted his knowledge which spread throughout the country and throughout the region, as far as Kenya.
In the Moore language, Sawadogo means “cloud maker”, and in the past the Sawadogo were called upon to bring back water. At a time when it is becoming increasingly rare, old Yacouba knew how to safeguard it better than anyone.
Read alsoYacouba Sawadogo, the man who greened the desert