The “Great Green Wall, Greening the Sahel in Burkina Faso” Project Officially Launched

The “Great Green Wall, greening the Sahel in Burkina Faso” project is a continuation of the initiatives developed by the NGO Tree Aid to remedy the accelerated degradation of natural resources that Burkina Faso has been facing in recent years. The new project will build on the foundations and achievements of the Weoog-Paani project, set up to empower local authorities in the management of their forests.

According to Thom Skirrow, CEO of Tree Aid Burkina, the project will cover 37 forest sites with a total area of 31,863.5 hectares, located in 23 communes in 4 regions: North, Centre-South, East, and Centre-East. Intervention strategies include enrichment planting on 12,000 hectares targeted in the 37 forest sites with species identified by the beneficiary communities, the promotion of agroforestry systems through the cultivation of indigenous woody and non-woody species on more than 950 hectares, as well as rainwater harvesting and water and soil conservation using community techniques.

The establishment of 23 nurseries, the production of 350,000 liters of liquid fertilizer for plant maintenance, the construction of 35 boulis and 2,000 km of access roads, and institutional support for technical services and communes are all activities that should also be carried out under the project, added Thom Skirrow.

Scheduled to last eight years, the Green Wall project should ultimately impact more than 5,000 households and enable the planting of over 6 million native trees, the sequestration of 2.97 million tonnes of CO2, the restoration of buffer zones in major national parks and community-managed forests, the creation of local and formal jobs, benefit sharing and improved livelihoods for 185 villages.

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Burkina Faso has been a member of the Great Green Wall Initiative since its inception

Burkina is committing itself to combating desertification and promoting sustainable land management. And for the Minister for the Environment, Roger Baro, the project launched today supports the Burkinabe government in implementing this commitment.

“The Green Wall project is of interest to the government in several ways. Firstly, it will support Burkina Faso in meeting its commitment to achieving the objectives of the Great Green Wall, with the ratification of the Pan-African Agency’s convention in 2015. Secondly, in view of the current climate crisis, which is more crucial than ever, the project will enable Burkina Faso to make a major contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement, with the eventual sequestration of 2.97 tonnes of CO2. Lastly, in view of its non-carbon benefits, this project strengthens the resilience of populations in the face of poverty, in a context exacerbated by the strong security challenge facing Burkina Faso today”, explained Roger Baro.

He urged the inhabitants of the villages bordering the forest sites, the first beneficiaries of the project, to take ownership of the project and get heavily involved in its implementation, particularly through the protection of the seedlings that will be planted, as they are the ones who will mainly benefit from the restoration of agricultural land but also from the production of non-timber forest products. The Minister of the Environment also urged the local population to be resilient, as the first results of the project will only be visible after several years.

This invitation has already been met with a favorable response, as the beneficiaries, through their representative Adjarata Yerbanga, have pledged to take care of the seedlings that will be planted to achieve the results expected by the project. Adjarata Yerbanga expressed her gratitude to Tree Aid for the various types of seedlings already received and planted as part of the Weoog-Paani project.

For the implementation of the Great Green Wall project, Tree Aid benefits from the financial support of Capricon Investment Group to the tune of 15 billion FCFA and the technical support of Earthshot Labs.

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(Featured image by jplenio via Pixabay)

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First published in le faso.net. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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