Over 20 Countries Started Building The “Great Green Wall” To Stop Climate Change & Poverty

Greta Thunberg is challenging nations to go green, MrBeast is rounding up YouTubers to plant trees, and Ethiopia is restoring its natural landscapes with record-breaking feats—saving the planet has never been more important than it is now.

These initiatives are certainly not the first, but they definitely help in the battle against climate change. Not only do they bring to the forefront the issues that we as inhabitants of Earth face, but it also sheds light on a number of other green campaigns—campaigns like the Great Green Wall.

Officially approved in 2005 and heavily endorsed in 2007, the Great Green Wall (sometimes called the Great Wall of Africa) is an initiative that aims to combat the effects of desertification in the Sahel Region (Northern Africa) and climate change worldwide.

The Great Green Wall Initiative aims to restore 100 million hectares of land that is currently degraded in the region and to sequester 250 million tons of carbon by 2030.

The initiative will also provide a number of socioeconomic advantages, like creating 10 million green jobs and greater economic opportunities for the youth as well as ensuring greater food security to millions.

Needless to say, the Great Green Wall Initiative will also grow an 8,000km chain of forests, making it a possible contender for the natural wonders of the world and a potential tourist location.

The ecological project gathers a great deal of inspiration and wisdom from other similar projects around the globe. Among them is the Algerian Green Dam, a massive reforestation program to safeguard and develop pre-Saharan areas, and the Green Wall of China, a series of wind-breaking forest strips in China to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert.

It has been 12 years since the official launch of the program, during which a handful of nations have achieved great results. According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, a bit over 20 million hectares of land (roughly 20% of the goal) has been restored in Ethiopia, Senegal, Nigeria, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and a handful of other nations. At the moment, a total of 21 countries are hosting projects related to the Great Green Wall with 23 regional and international partners in support.

The Great Green Wall Campaign has received a bit of criticism for attempting to solve desertification problem using the wrong means. According to Alessandra Giannini, a climate scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the Saharan Desert formed because of where it is and how little rain it gets. The amount of vegetation will not change the amount of rainfall.

Regardless, planting trees will mean reducing the effects of climate change, which now brings less frequent, but more intensive rainfall. Forestation should help reduce run-off and increase water infiltration into the soil resulting in a more efficient use of rainfall.