Great Green Wall Research Articles

Estimation of the Carbon Sequestration Dynamics of Senegal’s Great Green Wall Based on Land Cover over the Past Three Decades

Estimation of the Carbon Sequestration Dynamics of Senegal’s Great Green Wall Based on Land Cover over the Past Three Decades

Potential Impact of the Pan-African Great Green Wall on Sahelian Summer Precipitation: A Global Modeling Approach with MPAS

Abstract The pan-African Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel initiative (GGW) is a reforestation program to reverse the degradation of land. We investigate characteristics of mean precipitation due to proposed land-use changes to woody savannah with three hypothetical courses of the GGW, with an area between 0.8 and 1.25 million km2, and between the 100- and 400-mm isohyets. The global Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) was applied for this investigation, employing ensembles with 40 members for the rainy season from June to September and 50 members for August when precipitation is at its peak. In comparison with the observational reference, the results show that a wet bias on the order of 33% in the eastern Sahel and a moderate dry bias of −41% in the western Sahel are present in the MPAS simulations. Our simulations do not provide any significant evidence for GGW-induced changes in the characteristics of the summer precipitation, for positive changes within the Sahel supporting the forestation activities, or for potentially adverse changes in the neighboring regions. Changes are present at the regional scale, but they are not significant at the 5% level. Also, changes simulated for further hydrometeorological variables such as temperature, radiation fluxes, or runoff are comparatively small.

Recognising Recognition in Climate Justice

This article argues that in order to achieve climate justice, recognition needs to be given more attention in climate research, discourse, and policies. Through the analysis of three examples, we identify formal and discursive recognition as central types of recognition in climate issues, and we show how powerful actors exercise their power in ways that cause climate injustice through formal and discursive misrecognition of poor and vulnerable groups. The three examples discussed are: climate mitigation through forest conservation (REDD), the Great Green Wall project in the Sahel, and the narrative about climate change as a contributing factor to the Syrian war.

Accelerate the Mobilization of African and International Scientific Expertise to Boost Interdisciplinary Research for the Success of the Sahelian Great Green Wall by 2030

The Sahelian Great Green Wall (SGGW) is an influential project to combat desertification and promote sustainable land management on a large scale, involving 11 countries in the Sahel region of Africa. The UNCCD’s 2020 progress report showed a mixed picture concerning the meeting of the initial targets. At the One Planet Summit in 2021, announcements were made to consolidate the implementation of the SGGW, most notably with the creation of the Great Green Wall Accelerator. In this context, our paper sets out to review the scientific work conducted with regard to the SGGW. We have thus carried out a bibliometric analysis of the literature on SGGW. Although the initiative involves 11 countries and covers a large spectrum of scientific disciplines, our results show the predominance of ecological studies in the SGGW literature and a concentration of studies in certain geographies of interest, such as northern Senegal. Moreover, based on a secondary analysis of publications on land restoration and sustainable ecosystem management in Sahelian countries, we show that the literature relevant to SGGW topics is richer and fills in the information gaps we have identified at thematic and geographical levels. By showing that SGGW studies are overly focused on certain topics and geographical areas, our paper argues for a better interdisciplinary mobilization of researchers working on GGW-related topics. The scientific and operational success of the project depends on stronger networking between the different research teams and themes, both in Africa and internationally.

International Architecture News

The news announces the winners of the Daylight Award 2022 and the opening of the Great Green Wall Student Competition and the 5th cycle of the Golden Cubes Awards.

Evaluating the scaling potential of sustainable land management projects in the Sahelian Great Green Wall countries

The Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative aims at combatting land degradation while achieving socio-economic development across the Sahel through a mosaic of sustainable land management (SLM) and restoration practices. As the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the main funding mechanism for land degradation neutrality related projects, we have analyzed its previous SLM projects in four pilot countries in an effort to assess their capacity to foster scaling of interventions and fast track progress towards the GGW objectives. We developed a literature-based scaling evaluation framework and scoring methods to harmonize the GEF agency based project ratings in terms of performance and persistence along seven evaluation domains. We found that projects perform better over time particularly in terms of monitoring, financing and resilience to shocks but are overall only moderately likely to achieve benefits persistent over time, which is necessary to allow for the scaling of interventions. While these efforts should be maintained and further pursued, we also recommend special attention to be placed on a number of interventions that are often less successful or ignored by projects such as enforcing mechanisms for new SLM regulations, empowering vulnerable groups and ensuring sufficient capacity and finances for sustaining achievements even during periods of political or climatic instability.

Analysis of Africa's Great Green Wall Project in the Context of Climate and Water Policies

İklim değişiklikleri son yıllarda, özellikle ağır hasar yaratan meteorolojik olaylar, yaz aylarında aşırı ısı artışları ile yaşanan ölümler, yangınlar, tarım ürünlerindeki azalma, verimsizleşme ve su sorunları gibi etkileri neticesinde dünya genelinde daha fazla küresel tehdit olarak kabul edilmeye başlamıştır. İklim değişiklerinin etkileri bütün dünyada görülürken, bu süreçten Afrika daha fazla etkilenmiştir. Afrika’da iç savaşların önemli nedenleri arasında temiz suya ulaşım sorunları gelmektedir. İşsizliği, savaşları, hastalıkları, susuzluk ve kuraklığı getiren iklim koşulları Afrika’dan dünyanın diğer bölgelerine büyük kitlesel göç dalgalarını tetiklemektedir. Afrika’nın en yoğun düzensiz göç veren Sahel Bölgesi çatışma, kuraklık, çölleşme ve aşırı yoksulluğun yaşandığı ülkeleri içine alan bir alandır. Mevcut koşullar böyle devam ederse bu göçler, dünya genelinde gelişmiş ülkelerin yaşam kalitesini oldukça etkileyecektir. Halen bu durum yaşanmakla birlikte yakın gelecekte bu sorunların katlanacağı öngörülmektedir. Afrika Birliği tarafından 2007 yılında Büyük Afrika Yeşil duvarı projesi başlatılmıştır. Bu proje Sahra çölünü ağaçlandırarak, tarıma, yaşama ve istihdama verimli hale getirme projesi olarak tanımlanabilir. Afrika Büyük Yeşil Duvarının en önemli etkileri, iklim ve su politikalarına bağlı sürdürülebilir gelecek ile birlikte kadın istihdamı, yöre halkları için yaşam alanlarına sahip çıkma ve aidiyet duygularını güçlendirmesidir. Bu çalışmanın amacı küresel ölçekte iklim ve su sorunlarının çözümünde uluslararası büyük çaplı yeniden ormanlaştırma projelerine dikkat çekmektir. Bu yaklaşımla Büyük Afrika Yeşil Duvarı Projesi literatür taraması yöntemi ile incelenmektedir.

Linearity

In January 2021, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud launched The Line city project. Even for the Saudis’ fantastical ambitions, the project looks amazing: a city stretched along a straight line for 170 kilometers across the sandy desert from the Red Sea coast to the capital of the mountainous Tabuk province. The city will have three floors: a pedestrian zone on the surface, service infrastructure on the underground floor, and on the floor below there will be highspeed railways. It seems ironic that the ideas of a linear city, which were actively developed in the USSR, find large-scale implementation in a country with an absolute monarchy. Why do the ideas of a linear city come to life in our present-day world? How are these ideas transformed by digital technologies? How is the very notion of linearity changing as the fabric of the city becomes increasingly virtual and roads are replaced by 5G channels? As usual, we do not claim to have a comprehensive set of answers to these questions related to the cutting edge of urban theory and philosophy of the city. But is it just the city? Giant projects of the revival of the Great Silk Road, the concept of the Eastern pivot and Greater Eurasia form the image of a linear continent – not a city, but a giant complex of many cities in a number of countries. A group of architects from sub-Saharan Africa is initiating the Great Green Wall competition: a great band of green oases is to block the hot breath of the desert and mitigate the climate of the entire equatorial Africa. Today linearity looks like a global challenge and at the same time a strict condition for development on the most diverse levels: neighbourhood, city, region, continent, and humanity.

Resource Scarcity and Fulani Herdsmen/Tiv Farmers’ Crisis in Benue State, Nigeria

Purpose: This study aimed at exploring the dynamics of the resource scarcity as it resulted in Fulani herdsmen/Tiv farmers’ crisis in Benue State, Nigeria.
 Methodology: Descriptive design adopted in this study, depended on judgmental sampling technique. Secondary source of data collection (books, journal articles, monographs, internet materials among others) were sourced from internet and Nigerian libraries. These documentary data were subjected to content validity before analyzed qualitatively into the study. In order to deepen knowledge on Fulani herdsmen/Tiv farmers’ crisis in Benue State, the study adopted group theory as its framework of analysis.
 Findings: Findings revealed that climate change is the major factor that forced Fulani herdsmen from the Lake Chad Basin to migrate to Benue State; thereby causing resource competition with Tiv farmers. The Fulani herdsmen/Tiv farmers’ crisis has led to security risk, economic loss, humanitarian crisis as well as political division in Benue State. Findings equally revealed that, the federal government of Nigeria has responded to this crisis by proposing various measures, which include Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee, Cattle Colony as well as National Livestock Transformation Plan among others. Regrettably, these measures have not been able to offer lasting solution to the crisis; hence, its impacts continue existing unabated.
 Recommendation: This study, therefore, recommends wise use of water resource in Lake Chad Basin, reforestation in the northern Nigeria, as well as immediate implementation of Great Green Wall Initiative, as panacea for Fulani herdsmen/Tiv farmers’ crisis in Benue State.

Restoring Sahelian landscapes with people and plants: insights from large‐scale interventions

Combining traditional knowledge on native plant species with scientific plant expertise has been established as a critical factor to improve success of restoration interventions, yet evidence on its incorporation across large scales and in Africa, is scant. Even less known are the effective socio‐economic benefits that communities have reaped from restoration activities. This article builds on Sacande and Berrahmouni's paper, further supported by both socio‐economic and biophysical data from large‐scale restoration activities in Senegal, Niger, and Nigeria in support of Africa's Great Green Wall. In total, over 90,000 village households were involved and 56,000 ha of degraded lands planted in 10 countries across the Sahel to initiate restoration in 5 years. Key findings suggest not only ecological benefits, but improvements in livelihoods and health, critical factors underpinning restoration success in the drylands. Results show the profound role native plants and other non‐timber forest products play in the lives and livelihoods of dryland communities. Between 2016 and 2020, 120 tons of seeds were collected from over 110 native plant species and planted in 10 countries, with ecological and economic benefits. Perceived food insecurity significantly decreased in 2020 compared to 2016 observations, declining sharply from 46 to 15% in project sites in Senegal, from 69 to 58% in Niger, and 90 to 25% in Nigeria. In Niger and Senegal, communities generated revenues from fodder species alone of 40 USD/ha per year. The UN decade for Ecosystem restoration 2021–2030 will be an important platform to expand such climate change adaptation and mitigation programs.

The Social Impacts of Sustainable Land Management in Great Green Wall Countries: An Evaluative Framework Based on the Capability Approach

The Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) is a pan-African program launched in 2007 to combat land degradation and bring about both ecological and socio-economic benefits in the Sahel. With projects in place on only one-fifth of the targeted land and uncertainty about the extent of positive impacts, there is a need for improved monitoring and evaluation of current projects to inform the design of future projects. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of socio-economic impacts, drawing on development theory, to relate investments in sustainable land management (SLM) to outcomes in terms of human well-being. We deploy a conceptual model, which draws on both the capability approach to human development and the sustainable livelihood framework. To contextualize the framework to the Sahel, we undertook a literature review of scientific studies of the facilitative social conditions and socio-economic impacts of SLM interventions in four countries: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Ethiopia. We further refined the framework by examining project evaluation reports of Global Environmental Facility (GEF)-funded SLM projects. Our analysis of GEF projects shows that current monitoring and evaluation pays only limited attention to achieved outcomes in terms of well-being. We briefly discuss the application of the framework to SLM interventions and make recommendations for how it should be operationalized, including recommending more comprehensive measurement of the well-being impacts of these projects.

Coming back to a Commons approach to construct the Great Green Wall in Senegal

Since the 1970s, the Sahel region has been struck by severe droughts that has brought suffering to human populations. Scientists also observed declining rainfall leading to desertification in the zone. Against this backdrop, in 2007, several African states launched the international Great Green Wall (GGW) project that aimed to create a strip of forest from Senegal to Djibouti, crossing areas mostly devoted to pastoralism. We examined the social, land tenure and environmental implications of the GGW in Senegal, in the light of policies for pastoral intensification of the zone. The colonial heritage of the foresters from the Senegalese National Green Wall Agency who implement the project on the ground influences how reforestation is managed today. To understand how local populations relate to the space affected by the project and their resources, we organized participatory workshops in four contrasted study sites along the Senegalese portion of the GGW path. Our results show that trees are of great importance for local populations, whether agricultural or pastoral, but even more so in pastoral areas. Despite this, the national and international narrative considers Sahelian pastoralism and overgrazing as strong drivers of desertification. The paradox is that overgrazing is linked to the public policy of boreholes densification. Taking a Commons approach, we show the current and past role played by water in pasture management, and how water accessed by boreholes no longer regulates grazing practices. A Commons approach would pave the way for assisting stakeholders at different levels to favor regreening the Sahel.

A review of public versus private reforestation programs in the Senegalese Sahel: taking stock of realities and challenges

The Great Green Wall (GGW) across the Sahara is expected to generate a wide range of ecological and socioeconomic benefits. Ideally, ecosystem recovery should be assessed using measurable indicators (Society for Ecological Restoration [SER] principal 5). This requires agreement on only a few clear goals and targets and the establishment of effective measurement systems, yet in practice, each stakeholder and funder brings different targets that the GGW must achieve. Alongside its ecological objectives and biodiversity indicators, the GGW must also demonstrate meaningful socioeconomic benefits, engage communities, and contribute to green economic development in the restoration areas. Since the engagement of the private sector is presently seen as a critical challenge, we compare the current GGW approach and performance with that of an established Acacia senegal plantation focusing more narrowly on a commercial objective to produce gum arabic for export. Our analysis of information from both programs demonstrates strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the restoration successes achieved. These insights can help to guide ongoing programing and evaluation of the GGW toward both ecological and socioeconomic objectives in Senegal. They also reflect on emerging global discussion of business cases for reinvestment by all stakeholders to halt and reverse ecological damage.

Economic efficiency and targeting of the African Great Green Wall

Land degradation in the Sahel threatens livelihoods and food security. The Great Green Wall programme is a colossal initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded ecosystems across 11 countries in the region, which started in 2007 to also promote sustainable development and climate change mitigation. We evaluated the economic costs and benefits of future land restoration projects under this programme. We applied different scenarios that account for both market-priced and non-market benefits from restored ecosystems and consider the heterogeneity of local decision-making contexts in terms of investment planning horizons, discount rates, and the time needed for the restored ecosystems to start yielding their benefits in full. The results show that every US dollar invested into land restoration yields on average US$1.2 under the base scenario, ranging from US$1.1 to US$4.4 across the scenarios. At most, ten years are needed for land restoration activities to break even from the social perspective, accounting for both market-priced and non-market ecosystem benefits. To fund all proposed land restoration activities, an investment of US$44 billion is needed under the base scenario (US$18–70 billion across scenarios). Violent conflicts in the Sahel are estimated to reduce the accessibility to these degraded ecosystems from 27.9 million hectares to 14.1 million hectares. The study highlights activities and locations where land restoration is both economically attractive and ecologically sustainable, even after accounting for lower survival rates of planted trees and grasses, persistence of land degradation drivers and the growing number of violent conflicts hindering land restoration in the Sahel. This information can help improve the targeting of future land restoration activities in the region. A cost–benefit analysis of land restoration in the African Great Green Wall shows that, under a range of assumptions, the investment makes economic sense at a regional level, despite the differences across countries and biomes.

Spirits of the Great Green Wall in Senegal

This article offers an ethnographic study of the involvement of a controversial modern Japanese religious movement, Sukyo Mahikari, within the state-led pan-African reforestation project known as the Great Green Wall. The author argues that the members’ environmental efforts against desertilcation and climate change bring together so-called ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ actors. She shows how the oflcial recognition of Sukyo Mahikari as a valuable partner of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Senegal blurs the boundaries between the political, environmental, and religious spheres thanks to a ‘working misunderstanding’, an expression coined by Marshal Sahlins, thereby overcoming different framings in their relation to nature. This contribution examines the conditions that have facilitated the simultaneous secularization and spiritualization of ecology in the Senegalese context.

Environmental rehabilitation and the vulnerability of the poor: The case of the Great Green Wall

Poor people in rural areas depend directly on functioning agroecosystems. Environmental rehabilitation, culminating in the reestablishment of tree cover, is seen as improving ecological functioning and in so doing, reducing the vulnerability of the poor who rely on these agroecosystems. This is what we refer to as the win-win vision for afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR) programs – increases in ecological resiliency will lead to increases in social resiliency. This highly appealing vision cannot be realized unless one takes seriously the two basic premises. First, to reduce the vulnerability of a rural population, even in rural areas of the Sahel, one must develop strategies to improve the conditions of the most vulnerable. Second, technical success in terms of ecological rehabilitation will not automatically reduce the vulnerability of the most vulnerable and may in fact directly or indirectly exacerbate their vulnerability. Thus, for ARR programs to approach their win-win goals, one must be attentive not only to their technical success, but also to their social consequences for the rural poor. The Great Green Wall program is the most ambitious ARR program in sub-Saharan Africa. It seeks to rehabilitate degraded lands and reduce the vulnerability of the rural poor in dryland West Africa. We reviewed project documents from twelve country programs of the World Bank’s Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP) initiative that falls under the visionary umbrella of the Great Green Wall. Our approach was to treat these project documents as “research sites,” allowing us to not only consider how these projects conceptualize the relationships between vulnerability environmental rehabilitation but also to identify the activities and outcomes that projects attend to and measure their success by. In general, attention was narrowly focused on achieving the technical goals of ARR with outcomes primarily measured by numbers of trees planted, hectares restored, and people trained. We looked for evidence in these documents of efforts and strategies used to identify and target benefits to the most vulnerable. We found little evidence in project design and evaluation of attention to the differential vulnerabilities of particular livelihood and demographic groups nor to the potential for these projects to serve as mechanisms of enclosure to benefit powerful local interests. Rapid rural appraisal at nine ARR sites in Niger revealed little attention to the needs of the most vulnerable with some of the most vulnerable either excluded (women with absent husbands) or ignored (pastoralists). Moreover, ARR activities often led to the direct and indirect enclosure of reclaimed sites benefiting powerful individuals. Options to improve these programs are discussed.

Socio-economic impacts derived from large scale restoration in three Great Green Wall countries

Africa's Great Green Wall (GGW) is an ambitious initiative that prioritises large-scale restoration as the key approach to combat desertification and improve the livelihoods of rural communities south of the Sahara. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting its implementation through a community-centred intervention to generate positive impacts on livelihoods and increase socio-ecological resilience. An evaluation of socio-economic impacts was carried out based on household surveys conducted in the intervention areas in Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal between 2016 and 2020. Both diachronic (before and after the implementation) and synchronic (beneficiaries vs. control group) assessments of the socio-economic status of the communities were conducted using a set of indicators derived from the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Results revealed significant improvements in the socio-economic situation of the intervention populations. Household income improved after the interventions in all three countries, with positive significant differences against the control groups particularly in Nigeria and Senegal. In addition, perceived food insecurity significantly decreased in 2020 compared to 2016 observations, dropping from 46% to 15% in Senegal and from 69% to 58% in Niger. This study confirms the dual benefits of land restoration, both increasing vegetation cover and improving the livelihoods of rural communities.

Monitoring Large-Scale Restoration Interventions from Land Preparation to Biomass Growth in the Sahel

In this work we demonstrate that restoration interventions in arid to semi-arid landscapes can be independently assessed by remote sensing methods throughout all phases. For early verification, we use Sentinel-1 radar imagery that is sensitive to changes in soil roughness and thus able to rapidly detect disturbances due to mechanised ploughing, including identification of the time of occurrence and the surface area prepared for planting. Subsequently, time series of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from high-resolution imagery enabled tracking and verifying of the increase in biomass and the long-term impact of restoration interventions. We assessed 111 plots within the Great Green Wall area in Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. For 58 plots, the interventions were successfully verified, corresponding to an area of more than 7000 ha of degraded land. Comparatively, these computerised data were matched with field data and high-resolution imagery, for which the NDVI was used as an indicator of subsequent biomass growth in the plots. The trends were polynomial and presented clear vegetation gains for the monthly aggregates over the last 2 years (2018–2020). The qualitative data on planted species also showed an increase in biodiversity as direct sown seeds of a minimum of 10 native Sahel species (six woody mixed with four fodder herbaceous species) were planted per hectare. This innovative and standardised monitoring method provides an objective and timely assessment of restoration interventions and will likely appeal more actors to confidently invest in restoration as a part of zero-net climate mitigation.

A large mammal survey in Koyli Alpha Community Wildlife Reserve and its surroundings in the Great Green Wall extension area in Senegal

Wildlife in the Great Green Wall (GGW) area, northern Senegal, is threatened by the cumulative effects of anthropogenic activities, drought, and climatic changes. To support conservation planning in line with the GGW management objectives, we studied large mammal diversity in the Koyli Alpha Community Wildlife Reserve in the GGW extension area. We interviewed local communities, made reconnaissance & transect walks, placed camera traps, and carried out fixed point surveys to map the distribution of mammals & to estimate their relative abundance. The surveys were conducted between May 2017 and December 2019. We identified the presence of nine mammal species belonging to six families: one lagomorph, Cape Hare Lepus capensis; seven carnivores, Common Jackal Canis aureus, Pale/Sand Fox Vulpes pallida, Wild Cat Felis silvestris, Marsh Mongoose Atilax paludinosus, Honey Badger Mellivora capensis, Zorilla Ictonyx striatus, Common Genet Genetta genetta, and one primate, Patas Monkey Erythrocebus patas. Our results indicate that the most of the observed species range broadly across the Koyli Alpha Reserve. The Wild Cat and the Sand Fox were also found outside the reserve around the village of Koyli Alpha. Camera trapping events of humans and domestic animals were high throughout the survey area, and the majority of the large mammals observed were mainly nocturnal. The diversity of large wild mammals identified during this study points to the urgent need for the implementation of a management plan of the biodiversity in this area of the Ferlo.

Unpacking Decades of Multi-Scale Events and Environment-Based Development in the Senegalese Sahel: Lessons and Perspectives for the Future

A major challenge faced by human societies is to promote development that truly makes difference for people without jeopardizing their environment. This is particularly urgent in developing countries where, despite decades of development programs, local populations often live under poverty thresholds. With this study, we participate in the ongoing debate about the necessary global revision of development theory and practice in the rural Sahel. We retrace the development trajectories in the Ferlo, the northern silvopastoral zone of Senegal. We highlight how development has evolved from the 1940s to the present, from centralized development action programs focused on hydraulic infrastructure to current polycentric development with growing environmental concerns. We highlight multi-scale events that have influenced the successive development paradigms in the area. Focusing on the past thirty years, we analyzed twenty-five environment and natural resource management-oriented projects, describing the evolution of their objectives and actions over time and identifying recurring flaws: redundancy, lack of synergy, and questionable relevance to local needs We put forth that a more resilient thinking-based development paradigm is necessary to guide the growing number of environment-oriented development actions, including the African Great Green Wall, for which massive investments are ongoing throughout Ferlo and across the Sahel.