The global Great Green Wall movement launched in 2007 that aimed to grow 8000 km across the width of Africa has demonstrated limited success, often due to conflicts between sedentary and pastoralist communities. WeForest's programme of the same name is well positioned to accelerate and scale the Great Green Wall efforts, starting with our established projects in Ethiopia and Senegal.
The Great Green Wall is taking root in Africa's Sahel region at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, one of the poorest places on the planet. There, communities see first-hand the devastating effects of climate change and are chronically prone to food shortages due to land degradation. In these regions, the population is expected to double by 2050, exacerbating land degradation and a surge of people displaced by climate change.
In Ethiopia, WeForest started in 2016 with the restoration of a large dry afromontane forest (38 000 ha) in Tigray, involving 23 000 farmers from 13 surrounding villages with the ambition to grow forest cover, bring water back to these highlands, and reverse soil erosion, all while lifting the farmers out of extreme poverty. We have since added other projects in the Amhara region, as well as starting an ambitious silvo-pasture restoration in Ferlo in the north of Senegal.
The potential for restoring silvo-pastoral landscapes in Senegal alone is above hundreds of thousands of hectares, provided that herders have sufficient access to fodder production. Combined, our four Great Green Wall projects have already directly restored around 21 000 ha and are targeting approximately 50 000 ha by 2030. Nearly 22 million trees of 183 species have been planted or are regenerating in the full programme to date, and more than 23 000 families are directly benefiting.
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