Ten thousand years ago, following the last ice age, North Africa was a well-populated land of savannah, woodlands, and wetlands. Then, over the next few millennia, the climate dried across a belt of latitudes circling the globe from Africa through the Middle East to East Asia and even to the Americas. This drying created most of the great deserts of the world that we know today, including the Sahara, Negev, Arabian, Thar and Gobi.
This desertification hit existing agricultural societies hard. Just as today we see refugees fleeing drought-stricken areas, our ancestors would have been faced with the choice of dying of hunger and thirst, or moving to new land. But unoccupied lands were scarce as the productivity of the land declined throughout this huge area. In order to survive, some hitherto peaceful peoples became aggressive, brutal nomadic invaders, forcing those living around oases and along rivers to raise armies to defend themselves. As this relentless process continued generation after generation, so civilization as we know it was born. Out of the trauma experienced by peaceful, cooperative, egalitarian farming cultures emerged the violent, warlike, hierarchical, male dominated states of Egypt and Mesopotamia. We still live with their legacy today.
In her classic book, The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler characterised this process as the transition from partnership to dominator cultures. We tell the story of this transition in far more detail in our book, Hope for Humanity. There, we draw on many sources, including research on climate change, archaeology and anthropology, and books on the subject such as James DeMeo’s Saharasia, and Steve Taylor’s The Fall, as well as the work of Riane Eisler. (click the links on the right for further information)
For the last few decades, the Sahara has been on the march again, this time southwards into the nations of the Sahel - a region wracked by poverty and conflict. The reasons for this desertification are complex. They include decades of drought, population growth, the impact of misguided agricultural developments, and the breakdown of the traditional symbiotic relationship between farmers and nomadic herders - peoples who, over centuries, had developed a deep understanding of how to live sustainably and peacefully in this fragile region. Climate change due to global warming may also be a factor, but the extent of its influence is not yet clear.
What of the future? Are we about to see a repeat of the traumas of prehistory? Will further climate change bring more hunger and conflict to the peoples of the Sahel, or will the better rains of recent years continue? Computer models of global climate disagree on the answer. Some predict reduced rainfall for the region, while others predict an increase. (See UNEP report ClimateChangeSahelCombine.pdf) The reasons for these different predictions was investigated by Alessandra Giannini. She concluded that there will be drying if the effects of ocean warming dominate the climate, but there could be increased rainfall if regional land effects are stronger.
It is well-known that forests can increase rainfall across large regions by holding moisture in the landscape, and stimulating the formation of rain-bearing clouds. So one of the best ways to try to push the sahelian climate in the right direction is to plant trees. Enter the Great Green Wall project. The idea of planting a belt of trees across Africa to halt the advancing desert was first put forward in the 1980’s. But it was only recently that the idea received official approval and promises of international funding of up to $3bn under the UN’s Convention to Combat Desertification.
15km wide, and stretching 8000 km from the Horn of Africa in the east to the coast of Senegal in the west, the Great Green Wall will pass through 11 of the poorest countries in the world: Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. As well as planting drought-tolerant trees and shrubs, the project will create water retention ponds, new agricultural production systems and other economic activities, and social infrastructure. Besides stopping desertification and erosion it will protect water sources such as the shrinking Lake Chad, and restore or create biodiversity. It will bring economic development to local communities, helping to stem the tide of youth emigration, and providing them with energy resources, fruit, vegetables and other foods. And perhaps most importantly, it will foster political stability through cooperation at all levels from the international to the community. If it is to succeed, good science and technology are not enough. The project must also gain the support and involvement of local communities. The fact that this has been recognised at the highest levels at the outset augurs well.
This project brings hope to a huge region of fragile and degraded ecosystems, poverty and conflict. It offers hope of a transition to sustainability rather than the trauma of war, starvation, and displacement. It demonstrates how the challenge of climate change may be met in ways that foster the evolution of a new partnership society and an era of prosperity, peace and equality.
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