http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-11/17/c_135835359.htm
New UN map displays opportunities for restoration along "Africa's
Great Green Wall"
Xinhua Weibo
Source: Xinhua | 2016-11-17 05:12:00 | Editor: huaxia
This file photo taken on June 5, 2013 shows a labourer gathering
freshly cut palm fruits to be used in making palm oil, at a plantation
run by an Ivory Coast palm oil research center, in Alame, near
Abidjan.
Africa's tropical forests are threatened by a palm oil bonanza that
has already razed millions of old-growth hectares in Southeast Asia,
Greenpeace France warned on February 23, 2016. (AFP/File Photo/SIA
KAMBOU)
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- A ground-breaking map of
restoration opportunities along "Africa's Great Green Wall" has been
launched at the UN climate change conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, a
UN spokesman said here Wednesday.
"The Great Green Wall's core area crosses arid and semi-arid zones on
the north and south sides of the Sahara," Farhan Haq, the deputy UN
spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here.
To halt and reverse land degradation, around 10 million hectares will
need to be restored each year, according to the assessment, he noted.
"Experts say a variety of restoration approaches will be required to
bring the Great Green Wall initiative to an effective scale and create
a great mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa,
Sahel and the Horn," he said.
When Africa's Great Green Wall is finished, a 7,700-kilometer wall of
trees, crossing 11 countries along the southern frontier of the Sahara
Desert, will run from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Eritrea,
Ethiopia and Djibouti in the east.
Proposed by the African Union in 2007, the "Great Green Wall" will be
the largest living structure on the planet when the initiative is
translated into reality.
The purpose was to provide a mighty barrier against the advance of the
Sahara, and to reverse the plague of desertification spreading
drought, famine and poverty through the Sahel region.
About 40 percent of Africa is threatened by desertification -- the
loss of arable land to the encroaching Sahara.
The Sahel, a semi-arid transitional zone between the Sahara desert and
the savannah, is the focus of efforts to build a "Great Green Wall" to
hold back the desert and provide jobs and sustainable development for
struggling African nations.
Received on Wed Nov 16 2016 - 21:08:03 EST