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Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

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Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#11

Post by sophacles »

lancetipton wrote: post #2

Thanks for sharing. Super interesting video. Never spent a lot of time with it, but I've always been curious how people could rebuild an ecosystem. I think it was the dune series, that I read a number of years back that touched on this idea a bit in the second or third book? It was not something I ever really thought about before that. It's cool to see a real life example of it.

The linked channel has a lot of good videos it, and Mossy Earth is another. They aren't going to make you an expert by any means, but they provide good introductions to various projects that are underway doing ecological restoration. They're nice introductions to the topic.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#12

Post by alephnerd »

Nux wrote: post #9
legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

They could perhaps send there criminals, prisoners.. this kind of people.. have them man the green wall.

Or, you know, pay locals a consistent salary, thus helping the environment and also mitigating extreme poverty (<$1.25 a day) - which is what they are doing.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#13

Post by macspoofing »

legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

>Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is.

What was shown in the video looks like a "mickey mouse" operation, akin to a local tree planting effort to combat climate change. For this to make any difference you can't have people digging "half-moons" at a rate of 1 person/1 half-moon/1 day - that does not scale in any meaningful way. You need to do this kind of project at an industrial scale, with large amounts of heavy machinery and thousands of skilled professional workers - especially since they are discussing creating a "Green Wall" across thousands of kilometers at a width of hundreds of kilometers.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#14

Post by TheRealPomax »

sparrowInHand wrote: post #7

I abhor these projects, because they are seasonal- as in dependent on outside funds and thus hyper-fragile. Also usually propped up by colonizers, to detract from some ressource extraction destruction. Same with wildlife preserves. One bad coup with corrupt politicians, one recession in the west - and its all gone, poached and ruins. Its worthless feel good photo OP, monetary potemkin zoos and forrests, providing the…

I dunno, maybe watch the video and get your answers from the people who literally answers them in the video? They're not "planting trees", they're basically just running the normal progression of how sand forests develop at a faster, but still slow enough to take years, rate. Nothing particularly "it'll never work" or "it won't survive" about that.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#15

Post by legitster »

macspoofing wrote: post #13
legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

>Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. What was shown in the video looks like a "mickey mouse" operation, akin to a local tree planting effort to combat climate change. For this to make any difference you can't have people digging "half-moons" at a rate of 1 person/1 half-moon/1 day - that does not scale in any meaningful way. You need to do this kind of project at an industrial scale, w…

Yeah, I suspect that if the UN is actually serious about a Green Wall in the near future, they are engaging in mass industrialized planting. But it's not very expensive to have some marginal community projects here and there

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#16

Post by burnte »

sparrowInHand wrote: post #7

I abhor these projects, because they are seasonal- as in dependent on outside funds and thus hyper-fragile. Also usually propped up by colonizers, to detract from some ressource extraction destruction. Same with wildlife preserves. One bad coup with corrupt politicians, one recession in the west - and its all gone, poached and ruins. Its worthless feel good photo OP, monetary potemkin zoos and forrests, providing the…

You didn't watch the video, clearly. They're incredibly simple projects that help permanently convert land from desert to arable. They're not dependent upon the outside for anything except directions, as the only tools needed are what the people already have, a pickaxe and shovel. Once started it can continue on with nothing but locals who want to take more land back from the desert.

Nomads, landmines, buzzwords, you're just looking for edge cases where this fails, and that's not helpful. If it works for 80% of the land they look at, that's mre than good enough.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#18

Post by bluGill »

legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

There is no particular reason to expect Africa to do better in the near future. Russia and Iran are making large plays and helping dictators kick out the western supported governments (which were already corrupt, but making small strides to less corruption). I see no hope for most of Africa to do better. (note that I said most - There are 54 countries in Africa - several of them are doing very well - I hope this trend continues and spreads)

edit: looking closer, it looks like this might be in one of the few countries that might actually do better. Though that also helps as people who are doing better have time to invest in this. time will tell.

Re: Africa is building a Great Green Wall to prevent expansion of the Sahara

#19

Post by bluGill »

macspoofing wrote: post #13
legitster wrote: post #4

Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. This isn't a "rewilding" process - there is a LOT of manual human labor going into supporting very low yield agriculture. It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

>Fascinating video, but still it worries me how sustainable this is. What was shown in the video looks like a "mickey mouse" operation, akin to a local tree planting effort to combat climate change. For this to make any difference you can't have people digging "half-moons" at a rate of 1 person/1 half-moon/1 day - that does not scale in any meaningful way. You need to do this kind of project at an industrial scale, w…

There is plenty of labor in Africa, that scales very well. Just give the people reason to keep trees and they will plant and water them. There are many local advantages to trees so it isn't hard to get locals to take care of them with small incentives.
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