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Africa’s Great Green Wall changes millions of lives as 18 m ha of degraded lands restored
The Great Green Wall – which was launched by the African Union in 2007 – has managed so far to restore almost 18 million hectares of degraded lands, thus changing millions of lives by creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across 11 African countries.
The Great Green Wall initiative was focusing in the beginning on addressing the impacts of climate change and biodiversity, but later on it grew from an ambitious tree-planting drive into a comprehensive rural development initiative.
The countries of Africa’s Sahel region are mounting an epic response with a “wall” of restored forests and lands stretching more than 8,000 km across the continent, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
The Great Green Wall is a spectacular initiative designed to help people and nature cope with the growing impact of the climate emergency and the degradation of vital ecosystems, and to keep the Sahara desert from spreading deeper into one of the world’s poorest regions.
With support from donors, including France and Germany, the initiative is helping communities in Niger and neighbouring Burkina Faso to roll out restoration projects and develop the capacity to plan and implement their own green investments.
The initiative “supports green entrepreneurs to ensure the implementation of sustainable restoration investments and provides multiple benefits to the most vulnerable populations,” said Christophe Besacier, coordinator of the FAO’s Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism.
It is an approach that could be scaled up across Burkina Faso, Niger and neighboring countries, “offering hope for a better future at a time when conflict and insecurity are adding to the pressures on communities,” Besacier added.
“This remarkable initiative is already making a difference in the lives of many people across Africa, including in countries prone to conflict,” said Mirey Atallah, the head of the UNEP Nature for Climate Branch. “It also shows the huge benefits of restoration in landscapes acutely at risk from climate change.”
The initiative has been selected among the first 10 World Restoration Flagships of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The flagships are inspiring examples of how landscape-scale restoration can address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.
By 2030, the Great Green Wall aims to restore 100 million hectares of land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs. It is providing food and water security, habitat for wild plants and animals, and a reason for residents to stay in a region beset by drought and poverty.
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