Trees are nice, but they're not a simple solution.
January 12, 2017 6:34 AM   Subscribe

The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative started as a project to plant a 15-kilometer-deep belt of trees across all of Africa to stop the expansion of the Sahara Desert, but it has evolved into a more complex system that seeks to use a patchwork of local agricultural and management techniques.

First suggested by British environmental activist Richard St. Barbe Baker in the 1950s, the idea of a 15- to 30-kilometer band of forest was reintroduced in the early 21st Century by the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. (The Sahel, whose name comes from the Arabic word for "shore" or "coast", is the zone of transition between the Sahara and the savannah.)
posted by Etrigan (16 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
What great news! In so many places, bottom-up planning is more effective and sounder.
posted by mumimor at 7:22 AM on January 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


I heard about this initiative a while ago and it's just SO goddamn cool. It seems like we're always looking for techno-futuristic solutions to things that can actually be solved by using the same technology we've had for thousands and thousands of years.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:27 AM on January 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


good news is awesome. Thank you for posting this.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:48 AM on January 12, 2017


any trees on a farmer's property belonged to the government

It's interesting to see how a few sentences in a law book can have devastating long-term unforeseen environmental consequences.
posted by Jode at 7:58 AM on January 12, 2017 [7 favorites]


Thanks, Etrigan!

From that second link:
When Tappan compared aerial images he took in 2004 with those from as far back as 1950, he was blown away. Huge swaths once tan were green. Niger’s Zinder Valley had 50 times more trees than it did in 1975.

To figure out how the practice became widespread, Reij and Tappan did a bit of cultural archaeology. They learned it had originated with Tony Rinaudo, an Australian with Serving in Mission, a religious nonprofit. Rinaudo, working with local farmers, had helped the farmers identify useful species of trees in the stumps in their fields, protect them, and then prune them to promote growth. Farmers grew other crops around the trees.
Youtube "Tony Rinauldo" or "FMNR" (Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration) brings up a bunch of stuff. Here's one.
posted by Mister Bijou at 8:08 AM on January 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Tony Rinauldo" "Tony Rinaudo"
posted by Mister Bijou at 8:25 AM on January 12, 2017


I was confused about why punishing people for cutting down trees would reduce the number of trees. Seems backwards. But, counter-intuitively, it sounds like letting people cut down trees for their own use leads them to plant even more than they cut down. Neat!

The usual danger is that people will sell their trees to clear-cutters, but it sounds like the trees and agriculture are mixed together in a way that'll make that uneconomical.
posted by clawsoon at 9:10 AM on January 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


Tell me of the waters of your homeworld Usul
posted by Erberus at 9:18 AM on January 12, 2017 [7 favorites]


Think of it this way: If you can be punished for cutting down a tree, why plant any? If you see one sprouting, would you cherish and nurture it, or rip it out of the ground before it was officially noticed? Many of these countries have many corrupt officials, who may try to fine you for any tree that died for whatever reason unless bribed -- would that encourage you to plant more trees, or just kill any that aren't on the radar yet.

My parents lived in a house on a lake once, and their lake front area was under strict Army Corps of Engineers rules to not cut any trees down or face a fine -- trees were needed to keep the man-made lake from eroding all the soil around its edges. One new neighbor called up the ACoE and just said "I've cut down these three trees, what's the fine?" when he decided his new house's view was inadequate due to foliage in the way. They quoted the fine, he wrote a check, and last I saw, his back yard was rapidly eroding into the lake.
posted by Blackanvil at 9:26 AM on January 12, 2017 [15 favorites]


clawsoon: "I was confused about why punishing people for cutting down trees would reduce the number of trees."

For anyone confused: farmers won't let young trees get established under these sorts of laws. If I mow over or pull up a seedling tree no one will notice. Because no new trees are growing the population declines.

clawsoon: "The usual danger is that people will sell their trees to clear-cutters, but it sounds like the trees and agriculture are mixed together in a way that'll make that uneconomical."

It's not clear from the article but it sounds like at least one of the species of tree that is thriving can be coppiced or pollared which allows for a sustainable harvest without killing the tree per se.
posted by Mitheral at 9:31 AM on January 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


The concept sort of reminds me of the animated short The Man Who Planted Trees [30m] which I thought was a true story when I first watched it 30 years ago but I now realize was an allegory. Also an echo of the Johnny Appleseed myth in there.

It will be a major ecosystem change if they do manage to create this green wall but I'm not sure it's a negative change.
posted by hippybear at 10:52 AM on January 12, 2017


Hippybear, if you want an actual Man Who Planted Trees check out The Forest Man of India.
posted by fings at 11:19 AM on January 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


I know a lot of farmers who will gladly protect large areas of native forest on their land and this is often a family/generational project but if there's even a squeak from government that means that patch of trees would be required to be protected by law then they would simple bulldoze it - this happened recently in the UK with native wildflower meadows re EU grassland protection proposals -

A bit off-topic and personal opinion only - Farming is about intense/deep knowledge of a particular piece of land (similar to terroir in wine-making really) and its ability to be productive so it's easy for governments to manipulate farmers; town-people can move so much more readily. This can be seen often in policy decisions .
posted by unearthed at 1:07 PM on January 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


Where I live, farmers are discussing this very openly. Where do we go from here? There are obviously people who want to continue down the industrial direction farming has taken the last 40-50 years. But there are plenty others who question that. And consumers are driving change as well.
Anecdotically: here, the big industrial farming organization tried to bully their long time ally, the COOP, into only selling their produce. They failed. COOP only buys dairy from independent farmers with fair treatment of animals now. As a result, the big dairy is working hard to create produce that will lure consumers to other stores. Which means they need to get the farmers to do organic.
At first, organic is just a technical term. But I see my neighbors becoming more and more interested in raising forests, circulating crops, treating animals well. They are listening to science, they are remembering the knowledge of their grandparents, and they are following their guts.
Farmers aren't all evil - a lot of them love the land and the animals, that is why they are there.
posted by mumimor at 3:12 PM on January 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


It will be a major ecosystem change if they do manage to create this green wall but I'm not sure it's a negative change.

Desertification is also a major ecosystem change and also caused by human activity, and one that's very hard to reverse once it has happened.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:45 AM on January 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


What about the poor sandtrout?
posted by werkzeuger at 6:19 AM on January 14, 2017


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