BUILD THE WALL!  Build the wall!  Such chants are associated with America's immigration angst but they might more aptly apply to an encouraging UN intervention in Africa's Sahel region.  If you are looking for a tentatively optimistic tale of regenerative upgrade, then maybe it is this.  Thanks Emerge.

Sahel is the “beach" between the expanding Sahara desert and the tropical midlands of the great African continent.  This lateral region, cutting across many nation-states, is often hard to access and poverty-stricken.  There are disagreeing armies, ethno-nationalist terrorist forces, nomadic remnant populations, and mineral-hungry foreign expeditionary probes. 

PLUS it is slowly being consumed by southward creeping desertification.  Sounds hellish.  But they do get rain. 

They get a lot of rain for a couple of months each year.  Unfortunately, this water falls on hard-packed dry soil that cannot hold any moisture  So the water just channels into temporary rivers and drains away while eroding the landscape. 

That's where the NAGGW comes in.  Stop just sending Food Aid and start initiating the political alliances necessary to implement programs to restore regenerative and self-sustaining eco-cultural viability. 

The United Nations, working with the African Union, established a set of GGWs (Great Green Wall teams) operating through national governments -- starting with Niger in 2007.  Their goal is (by 2030) to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land; sequester 250 million tons of carbon and create 10 million green jobs.

And it is... kinda working.

The basic plan is ridiculously simple.  Get a lot of local men, women, and children to dig semi-circular “half-moon" basins along the edge of the desert.  Put some smaller holes in & around the basin.  Throw in a little tree and some grass seed.  Et voila!

When the rains come, the water sloshes into the half-moons and drains slowly down the holes -- which hold and spread moisture even when the rains go away.  This moisture causes the roots of the trees and grass to deepen... which holds more moisture.  The flood waters also deposit seeds, organic detritus, micro-organisms, etc., into these little oases. 

Put enough of them next to each other and, in a couple of years, you have large, thriving, self-sustaining green lands that start attracting animals, birds, new seeds, and providing their own shade.     

Almost insanely simple.  And it's working.  In Niger alone, the equivalent of almost a million hectares have been restored in the last several years.  This increase in food security, viable land, and jobs is of great interest to the government of Niger.  And to the other African nations along the Sahel. 

The program needs to be expanded, robustly implemented by a variety of nations, and protected from outbursts of regional violence, but it is succeeding, spreading, and demonstrating the viability of a simple but powerful response to the realities of the Anthropocene.


*** BONUS ***

If you hate reading, here's a short video from an excitable permaculture specialist who was recently onsite in Niger with the UN World Food Programme.