The Irish government, through its Environment Minister Denis Naughton, has announced that it will invest 1.2 million euros in the "Great Green Wall" project in Africa. This will be done through the Society of African Missions (SMA), a Catholic community. The objective is to contain the advance of the Sahara Desert, by focusing on sustainable development.
The Sahara Desert expands a little more each year towards the south of the African continent, threatening the practice of agriculture, yet a major activity in this part of the world. Africans are trying to stop this progress, notably by launching the “Great Green Wall” project. To support this effort, Environment Minister Denis Naughton announced that the Irish government will invest 1.2 million euros in this project, the aim of which is to stop the progress of the desert.
The Minister should confirm this funding on his next trip to Roscommon in Northern Ireland. He should meet the leaders of the Society of African Missions (SMA), a Catholic community very involved in sustainable development. The Irish government intends to use this community to support the Great Green Wall project in Africa. The Irish Government’s money will be used to plant the trees, with the help of the local population.
The Great Green Wall project in Africa
It is also in Roscommon that Denis Naughton will give the date of the beginning of the work diligent by the SMA on the field in Africa. This action will be in addition to many others already carried out within the framework of the “Great Green Wall in Africa” project. It is a vast project that will affect 11 countries on the continent.
The idea was launched in 2005 by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. It is all about building a great barrier of vegetation which must go from Senegal to Djibouti to stop the advance of the Sahara Desert. The “Great Green Wall” would be accompanied by retention basins to collect rainwater. The countries concerned are: Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. The project also includes an extensive programme to restore degraded land in a region with tens of millions of inhabitants. The “Great Green Wall” must be 8,000 km long and 15 km-wide.
Progress of the project
Senegal is one of the countries where the project is well conducted. On the spot, more than 5000 hectares are reforested each year. In the West African country, a total of 817,000 hectares of land will be reforested. By 2015, only 340 000 hectares were missing where trees should be planted.
The other country where progress is being made is Mali. In 2017, 120 billion CFA francs (more than 182 million euros) were injected into the project. The money comes from Malaysian company Bionas, which specialises in biodiversity restoration and green energy production. It has received the support of the UN. This company, present in 39 countries, wants to make it a development project, considering wood as a source of energy. It is worth pointing out that in Mali, reforestation concerns more than one million hectares of plantations.
Jean Marie Takouleu
