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Re-greening the Sahel on the southern Sahara

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Posted on October 8, 2010 by ecoadmin 

Severe droughts have degraded farmland

sahel

For centuries, farmers in the Sahel – a band of land that crosses Africa at the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert – used rotational tree farming to provide year-round harvests and a consistent source of food, fuel, and fertilizer, writes Danielle Nierenberg, co-project director of the WorldWatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet initiative. But severe droughts and rapid population growth in the ‘70s and ‘80s significantly degraded the Sahel’s farmland, leading to the loss of many indigenous tree species and leaving the soil barren and eroded. With the loss of the trees went the knowledge, traditions, and practices that had kept the region fertile for hundreds of years.

To save the land as well as local livelihoods, many traditional management practices are now being revived. One inexpensive method of farming that helps to restore the Sahel’s degraded land is so-called Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).

By pruning shoots that periodically and naturally sprout from below-ground root webs, farmers can promote forest growth and take advantage of a naturally occurring source of fuel, food, or animal fodder.

The trees produce fruit rich in nutrients and help to restore the soil by releasing nitrogen and protecting the ground from erosion by wind and rain. The cultivated but naturally occurring forest also creates a local source of firewood and mulch, reducing the time spent in gathering fuel for cooking meals and cleaning households . The practice also cuts down on deforestation as the trees that are used for fuel are replaced with seedlings and tended by farmers.

“Farmer-managed natural regeneration is a fairly simple technique, but it produces multiple benefits,” explained Chris Reij, a natural resources management specialist with the Center for International Cooperation (and advisor to the Nourishing the Planet Project), at an Oxfam-hosted panel on locally driven agriculture innovations in Washington, D.C., last October. “Sometimes planting trees make sense, but in terms of costs and long-time success, in many cases it makes more sense to use natural regeneration.”

As important as the technique itself is, even more important is making sure that farmers in the Sahel know about it. When farmers learn how they can benefit from the practice, they are quick to adopt it, improving their own livelihoods and food security while regenerating local forests. Reij attributes the overwhelming success of FMNR in Niger—where many villages have 10–20 times more trees than 20 years ago—to the reduced central-government presence in rural areas.

More information: www.worldwatch.org

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One Response to “Re-greening the Sahel on the southern Sahara”

  1. ecoadmin says:

    October 8th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
     

    If Sahel can be made to flourish again then surely places such as the Aral can be brought back to life?

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