Essay on Desertification: Pros and Cons

Within the last 30 years, the state of the world’s climate has been a growing topic of discussion. Climate change can and will have drastic effects on the planet and will become the greatest threat to humans. One of these effects is desertification. Desertification is the transition of an area into a drier climate, typically associated with deforestation and droughts. Perhaps the largest and most profound case of this effect is found in Africa, on the northern border of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahara Desert. The expansion of this desert to the south is becoming a major problem in areas affected due to the effect it has on farmland, ecosystems, deforestation, and water sources.

A solution to this threat is a project called The Great Green Wall. This is a project that involves more than 20 African nations and other groups determined to build a barrier of trees and vegetation to help fight this expansion. One of these nations is the country of Libya, Libya is in Northern Africa, and is consumed by the Sahara Desert entirely, but this does not mean their involvement in this project is minor. The analysis of the costs and benefits of investing in natural resource management, the implementation of this initiative, and the long-term positive effects this barrier will have will prove this project as a viable solution to this problem as well as highlight Libya’s and other African nations’ involvement.

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Massive environmental projects like the Great Green Wall will carry immense costs through the planting of the vegetation, the labor associated with the work required, and the maintenance of these new systems of life. These costs make it hard for people to see what the benefits of these projects are. An article published by Agropolis International, a French research foundation, discusses some of these costs and benefits of fighting the increased desertification in Africa. The article written with input from more than a dozen authors discusses the relationship between the benefits and costs of investing in resource management. The authors state that “the benefits of implemented forestry investments (wood production, fodder, enhanced crop yield) are correlated with the forest implementation and maintenance costs (plants, watering, monitoring, land costs, etc.)” (Bellefontaine et. al. 26). From this, the argument of whether or not it is beneficial to invest in resource management can be answered with the support that it is in many ways. Now, with Libya’s geographic location and climate, this vegetative wall cannot form within the bounds of the nation. However, Libya’s contribution to this project is in the form of funding. An article published in Landscape News, an online science journal that features the latest science-driven news, details how “today, the Initiative has 21 African countries participating, some $8 billion of pledged funding, and such weighty partners as the World Bank and the French government” (Bilski). One of these nations is Libya. The fact that Libya will not be directly affected by this project, and is surrounded by desert is very important. It shows that there are groups that will take on the costs associated with this project without seeing the direct benefits. This notion provides support that this initiative can be a viable solution to the desertification and climate problems that face Africa today.

The planned-out and intensive implementation of The Great Green Wall also provides support that this project is a viable solution to desertification. According to an article published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Bioversity International, this project will involve a tree belt that is 15 kilometers wide, and 7775 kilometers long (Berrahmouni et. al 4). At the conclusion of this article, the writers of this article describe how “A number of successful forestation and forest restoration projects exist in the GGWSSI countries and these can be quickly upscaled to support the effective implementation of the initiative” (Berrahmouni et. al 18). GGWSSI represents the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative. This way of thinking about implementing a project of this size is key to its success of it. The concept of people or groups summing their smaller parts together to form a larger whole is one that simplifies the initiative into something that is manageable compared to the first sight of it. Libya in fact is one of these “smaller parts” that can have a large impact on the success of fighting desertification. Now as mentioned before, given that Libya is almost entirely covered by the Sahara Desert and their contributions to The Great Green Wall are primarily financial. However, in a section of the book titled Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Ali Mansour Saad, Noresah Mohd Shariff, and Sanjay Gariola describe some of Libya’s efforts that could be upscaled by saying “major desertification controlling strategies can be summarized in the implementation of a range of diverse projects by government in many areas (i.e. forest, pastures, sand dune fixation, soil and water conservation, resistance to erosion and integrated agricultural development)” (Saad et. al via Heshmati and Squires 82). With many other countries' plans to fight desertification in place, the collective effort of organizing these programs can be used to form this Great Green Wall. Lastly, the time to create this wall is very important to its success of it. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, this initiative was started in 2007 with estimated completion by 2030, with major progress in spaces including Ethiopia, Senegal, and Nigeria (UNCCD). Yes, at first this can seem like a long period of time for the estimated completion of a project. However, the question can be asked, how long until the problem of desertification becomes insurmountable and what effect will the drastic consequences of the continuing southward expansion of the Sahara Desert have on those in Africa, but also on those throughout the world? Doubters of this project may want to take a harder look at the concrete facts and realize that it is better to act sooner rather than later.

Lastly, the analysis of the long-term benefits of reforestation and fighting desertification will provide further support that The Great Green Wall is a sustainable and effective solution to the crisis at hand. The most obvious of these benefits is the positive environmental impact the wall will have. However, there is a wide range of positive economic and social impacts this project will have. An article by professor Njidda Mamadu Gadzama, a Nigerian zoologist and environmental scientist offers a critical review of this initiative while discussing some of the benefits associated with it. He focuses strongly on the project's involvement in Nigeria and discusses the high poverty rate in the northern part of the country and says that “the GGW project which is succeeding, represents a special venture for stabilizing the environment and offers an opportunity for improved livelihoods for inhabitants of the two zones” (Gadzama 286). The two zones represent the Northeast and Northwest areas of Nigeria which are directly affected by the spread of the Sahara. He provides the input of stakeholders in the project who highlight these improvements for the area such as increased food supply, job creation, and sustainable farming (Gadzama 286). Nigeria is just one of the twenty-plus nations involved in the project. With attainable results from the intensive planning and coordination of the Great Green Wall, there is a motive and support created from those who desertification threatens immediately. Now, hopes and wishes for positive outcomes are great, but there are those that rely on hard evidence or the data of something for it to be evaluated. While the project is still taking shape, there have been positive results from previous reforestation projects that The Great Green Wall can be monitored. The article published by Agropolis International that analyzed the costs associated with the benefits of this initiative also references a study over a 20-year period in Niger and Burkina Faso in which inhabitants of these regions actively protected trees and vegetation during the time span of the study. The authors of the article state that 'these trees produced wood (as of the 6th year), fodder, and enabled an increase in crop yields (5% harvest increase). These field survey-based assessments revealed rates of return of 31% in Niger and 24%in Burkina Faso (Bellefontaine et. al. 26).