Great Green Wall Project
Transforming desert into productive land.
These days when all the news seems dire, it is an absolute delight to find out about an inspiring ecological restoration project that had never come to our attention before.
It turns degraded, nearly-barren land on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in the Sahel region of Africa into productive forest, grass, and crop land.
The project’s aim is to transform a belt of land across the width of Africa to hold back and reclaim the desert by creating many small-scale structures that retain wet season rains to water plants and trees through the dry seasons. The system also recharges groundwater, provides fodder for animals, food for local people, and stores carbon.
The project has been going since 2014, with some activities starting as early as 2008. Eleven countries have joined the initiative; Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan.
The Great Green Wall project website has a lot of numbers about what has been achieved where, to date. A YouTube video by permaculture instructor Andrew Millison provides a startling visual demonstration of the progress and impact so far in Niger.
Reading
- Great Green Wall. “Growing a World Wonder.” Accessed April 8, 2025. https://thegreatgreenwall.org.
- “Inside Africa’s Food Forest Mega-Project.” 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBdIG--b58.