Chad: Green wall starts to grow
For decades, the government in Chad saw the environment as “the white
man’s problem” said Minister of Environment, Hassan Térap. “For so
long, it was a problem for rich countries, but now our land has been
denuded, cattle are dying, water is shrinking, it is our problem too,”
the minister told IRIN.
More than one-third of the country’s cattle – or about 780,000 animals
– died following a 2009 drought that shrivelled pastures, according to
the government. “Without shade, heat beats down on our animals more
quickly,” said herder Al Hadj Abakar in Chad’s western region of
Kanem.
Heads of states from African countries are concluding a meeting on 17
June in Chad’s capital N’Djamena to launch a transcontinental 7,000-km
tree planting project, from Senegal to Djibouti in east Africa.
When asked if the long-discussed but yet-to-be funded Green Wall
initiative was too ambitious, Térap told IRIN: “We have to attack the
problem, long ignored, through vision, ambition – and trees. What is
wrong with ambition?” The countries involved in the initiative include
Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan,
Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
As part of the continent-wide barrier, Chad aims to plant a
1,000km-long by 15km-wide wall of trees. The initiative was launched
with US$4.6 million in government funds, but Térap estimates it will
cost at least US$11 million to reach the coverage target.
The country’s 11.9 million hectares of existing forest land has shrunk
by at least 0.6 percent annually in the last 20 years, according to UN
Food and Agriculture’s most recent report on the state of the world’s
forests.
Since 2009 the government has criminalized the cutting down of trees
to make charcoal, with six months imprisonment and fines, in an effort
to reverse deforestation.
It has also started planting 160,000 heat-resistant trees, including
acacia in N’Djamena.
But planting trees is not enough, according to the environmental
ministry’s director of forestry, Abakar Mahamat Zougoubou. “You need a
holistic approach, to develop systems.”
“Nurturing trees is not a sexy investment for NGOs, which may plant
seedlings in greater quantities than the government. But we are the
ones who remain and need to nurture the plants when groups move on. We
need to encourage the private sector,” Zougoubou said.
The government estimates that private greenhouses in Chad planted two
million trees in 2009.
Waving his hand over a tree planting site in N’Djamena that he hopes
will one day become part of the “Green Wall”, Minister Térap told
IRIN: “We will soon stand in the shade here. It is a long road, but I
can see the shade at the end of the tunnel.”
Source: IRIN
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