Why Africa is Building The Great Green Wall

4300 years ago the Akkadians of Mesopotamia forged the world's first Empire they seized control of the cities along the Euphrates River and on the fruitful Plains to the north all in what is now Iraq Syria and parts of southern Turkey the first enemy that put first ancient empires like Sumeria Acadians and even Babylon to its knees was climate change more specifically the certification across the region the certification has been described as the greatest environmental challenge of our time and climate change is making it worse each year around an area three times the size of Switzerland is lost the shifting sands of the world's deserts while the term may bring to the mind windswept sand dunes of the Sahara or the vast Australian outback it's an issue that reaches far beyond those living in and around the world's deserts threatening the food security and levels of more than 2.5 billion people the combined impact of climate change land management and unsustainable freshwater use has seen the world water scarce regions increasingly degraded this leaves the earth soil less able to support crops livestock and local wildlife arid semi-arid and dry sub humid areas are collectively known as Giants these are that received relatively little rain or snow each year in simple terms the amount of rainfall of the Erie receives is between 5 to 65 percent of the water and it has the potential to lose through evaporation and transpiration from the land surface and vegetation any area that receives more than 65% of the water it's referred to as humid and it's mostly hue of tropical areas like Amazon Central Africa in East Asia if you look at this map with the world's dry lands are located dry lands encompass around 40% of the world's land area covering much of North and South Africa North America Australia the Middle East and Central Asia dry lands are home to approximately 3 billion people 90 percent of whom live in developing countries dry lands are particularly susceptible to land degradation because of scarce and variable rainfall as well as poor soil fertility so almost 40% of the Earth's land surface is at risk of becoming a desert there are numerous ways in which the land can't agree one of the main causes is by erosion the gradual breaking down and removal of rock and soil this is typically through some force of nature such as when the rain or waves but can be accelerated by plowing grazing and deforestation the direct causes of desertification can be broadly divided between those relating to how the land is managed like or grazing of livestock over cultivation of crops and inappropriate irrigation for example plants and grasslands must diaper logically to record itself again the next season and when the livestock eats up all the grass from the land so the ground opens up and become susceptible to sun's UV lights and oxidation so the carbon escapes the ground to the atmosphere and the fertile soil dies as a matter of fact there is more carbon resides in soil than in the atmosphere and all plant life combined there are 2,500 billion tons of carbon in soil compared to us 800 billion tons in the atmosphere and 560 billion tons in plant and animal life so the certification is a much more serious threat to the environment than fossil fuel companies and chemical industries combined as the 40% of the land surface is at risk of becoming a complete desert and yet almost nobody is talking about this threat storing carbon back in the soil is simple it's a matter of returning where it belongs to the ground so in this video we will talk about natural to certification human-made certification and how to reverse it in even terraform lifeless deserts to forests and grasslands beyond affecting land and the natural environment land degradation poses serious threats to agricultural productivity food security and quality of life nowhere is this issue more urgent than in sub-saharan Africa where an estimated 500 million people live on land undergoing to certification the Sahara Desert is the largest in the world has grown by 10 percent since 1920 so in just one hundred years a fertile area equal into the combined area of Germany Great Britain Norway Ireland Cuba and Denmark is lost it's mostly due to combination of natural climate variations reduce rainfall and global warming a series of complex climate cycles affect conditions in the Sahara for example the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation a neutral climate cycle that changes the Atlantic Ocean from warm to cold phases every sixty to eighty years and can impact rainfall patterns across much of Africa for example Lake Chad in the Sahel region which used to supply fresh water and livelihoods to nearly 30 million people has shrunk by 90 percent because of the certification and lack of rainfall on top of that global warming over grazing and mismanagement of land accelerated the expansion of Sahara so in Africa's scientists are hard at work restoring land once rich in biodiversity and vegetation 11 countries and the African Union have joined to combat desertification and restore native plant life to the local region and it's called the great green wall of Africa this great green wall an expense 15 kilometer wide starts from the car Senegal and stretches all the way to the east eight thousand kilometers to Djibouti the most interesting part they are planting drought resistant acacia trees so these tree roots hold water in the soil of the rains as a result even greater water wells in Senegal have filled up again it has been almost a decade now only 15 percent of the project has finished and still it has shown remarkable results for example in Ethiopia 15 million hectares of degraded land restored to put it into perspective 15 million hectares is bigger than Belgium Netherlands Switzerland and Denmark combined so that was the huge success for Ethiopia and in Niger five million hectares of land restored delivering additional 500 thousand tons of grain per year that's enough to feed 2.5 million people and other countries have also shown progress not to mention millions of tons of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere back to the soil the most shocking part of this project that it's relatively cheap only 8 billion dollars are needed to complete the whole project and ever since it's only been spent one point four billion dollars generally eight billion dollars is incredibly cheap considering the magnitude and the impact of this project on both to the local and global environment to put that into perspective the US military budget for the year 2020 is 115 billion dollars imagine if only 10% of this sum is used to restore the environment but unfortunately that's just a dog barking at the moon the expansion of Sahara is the combination of both natural cycle and human influenced climate change but there are places like Mongolia where desertification is completely human-made after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Mongolia established its own democratic government unemployment was high and the most lucrative business was domestic hurting as Mongolia experts kashmira meat and wool since 1990 livestock numbers have gone from around 15 million to 66 million in a country where population itself is only 4 million people over grazing by millions of sheeps and goats is the primary cause of land degradation in Mongolian steppe one of the largest remaining grassland ecosystem in the world the Mongolian certification not only poses a serious threat to the local ecosystem but it will contribute to the global climate change as well about seventy nine percent of the country is considered grasslands so the amount of carbon in the soil is enormous in recent years it was found that twelve percent of the biomass has disappeared in Mongolia twelve percent that's more than that twice the size of Texas and seventy percent of the grassland ecosystem is now considered a degraded which means it's dying and in the process of becoming a desert or grazing of livestock account for about 80 percent of the vegetation loss another 20 percent is the climate change effect if the certification persists in this country the amount of carbon released in the atmosphere would further accelerate the global warming desertification is constantly happening in most developing countries including one of the biggest one India the Government of India has finally started thinking about the consequences of deforestation in its region inspired by the great green wall of Africa they are planning to restore the rapidly shrinking green area in the country they are planning to create 1,600 kilometer long and five 200 meter wide green ecological buffer along the our Walley range from Gujarat to Delhi so as you might have guessed it's also called the great green wall of our wali so in ten years 1.3 billion new native trees will be planted to rehabilitate the local forests these green walls mainly act as a buffer that might some testers from expanding but there is only one way to actually reverse the certification where degraded land becomes a grassland and forest this only option is a plant grazing by mimicking nature method developed by Allan salary as livestock as the main cause of desertification worldwide in this particular method as counterintuitive as it may sound livestock is actually used to both to stop desertification and start afforestation so this solution works by moving livestock to a degrading grassland and move without letting them or graze as in wild nature big herds of animals will not be at the same place for a long time because of predators and constant threat so this method actually mimics nature for example you let one big herd of livestock into a degrading area they will graceful let's say for an hour or so and they will immediately move to the another area so what will be left in the area are plant and grass that are laid back in covering the soil from the Sun protecting carbon and nutrition escaping the ground additionally faeces and urine of livestock will play as an angel fertilizer once the soil is protected its biomass will become stronger and suck more carbon from the atmosphere to the ground after some time the ecosystem will diversify it was different plants and trees Allan salary did an actual experiment in Zimbabwe and in Mexico where he moved a big herd of livestock to a certifying land for plant grazing after some time the results were spectacular plant life has returned to a degrading area even though the number of livestock has increased by 400% if we do this mimicking nature method the world's dry lands it's estimated that the soil will suck so much carbon that it will take greenhouse levels to pre-industrial level simultaneously feeding hundreds of millions and even billions of people in developing countries well the certification is happening in the US as well about 40 percent of its region is under high risk of becoming a desert even though over grazing is not the main problem I have a theory on this huge herds of American Buffalo used the room though North American continent for thousands of years they moved quite often fearing from predators so naturally all these years they have kept this well protected now they are nearly extinct and the greatest risk of desertification in America is 8 out of 10 this mimicking nature method is actually the only natural and legitimately tacit way to stop the ratification curve global warming and potentially the single biggest solution to climate change that nobody is talking about and it doesn't need a huge budget or anything like that but only strategically moving livestock mimicking nature along with dying areas for plant grazing and I think this can be the game changer in the fight against global warming well thanks for watching please share this video and support the channel on patreon I've been working on a few video projects that are going to be released soon I will be releasing videos quite often now so please subscribe not to miss upcoming episodes and hit the like button if you genuinely liked the video if you haven't liked it comment down below so we can peacefully discuss

Channel: CuriousReason

Views: 449,433

Rating: 4.8556452 out of 5

Keywords: Africa, Great Green Wall of Africa, geography, Desertification, Green Wall, Climate, Sahara desert, Trees, Tree Wall, Team Trees, Why is Africa building a Green wall, Search Results Can Africa's Great Green Wall Help Fight Climate Change, ecosia, reforestation, deforestation, Plant trees, Tree planting, reverse climate change, green, agriculture, Green Sahara, desert, savannah, grass, grassland, education, curious reason

Id: LQrW8OckLuQ

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/KCMahomes1738]

Is it possible to turn desert back into useable land?

[u/nobilified]

I started helping plant moringa trees in burkina faso. We have helped plant 30,000 trees over the past year. It is kind of incredible to see how a red earth dry arid land can look lush a year later.

[u/chotchss]

This is a great idea, but given that much of the Sahel is a war zone it is unlikely to really see much progress any time soon.

[u/prodiglow]

Shout out to Pakistan. Have already planted one billion trees and planning ten billion in the next 3 years

[u/iwanttobelieve42069]

I thought Africa went back and forth from desert to jungle over thousands of years.

[u/magenta-placenta]

Now, that's a wall we can all get behind.

[u/BodybuildingBuddhist]

As Bolsonaro is destroying the Earth's lungs in Brazil, this is such an amazing initiative!

[u/ShaiHulud23]

You're killing the sandworms!

[u/[deleted]]

We need this to be done here in Australia to bad we have a prime minister who thinks coal is clean energy. Nothing will change with these people and my generation and everyone after me have to live through Warner winters and record breaking summer heat waves.

Think about it this way 16 million is all it will cost and that money is cheap but I’m sure the ministers and people would rather it go towards coal and ways to make them selves have more money