Summary
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| The Sahel region of Africa |
In
"The wall holding back a desert" (2020), Richard Gray tells environmental problems of Paga, a town in northern Ghana, at the southern edge of the Sahel region of Africa. Paga is facing the periods of drought caused by over-exploitation of agricultural and habitation. It is also at risk of desertification because the Sahara Desert is stretching to the Sahel region. Hence, there is an attempt to create tree barriers to hold back the desert, called the Great Green Wall. One of the tree barriers in Paga is baobab, a tree that develops community economics as its fruit is a popular healthy food. Accordingly, the new baobab is added on Paga. However, some people have concerns that the value of baobab can cause monocropping, which makes the desertification worsened, and there can be a better way to solve this problem.
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Response
At first, I think this article is only about building a wall that prevents sandstorm from the Sahara Desert in Africa. This story draws to my attention because once the Sahara Desert was green and humid with rivers and savanna grass around 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. Now, the Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world, and it is growing every year. The drought area near the desert is becoming desertification faster as well. Therefore, I would like to know more about the drought area near the desert and its wall.
The wall holding back desert is actually the tree barrier that could prevent the spread of desertification. The wall is made by humans, but it is not the same wall as the Great Wall of China. They plant trees instead of using rocks and concrete material. The African Union endorsed ‘the Great Green Wall’ project to grow trees across the entire width of Africa. It is not only save the drought of land but also hold back the desertification. Therefore, with 5,500 kilometers long from west to the east of Africa continent, the wall of the Sahel region must be wide and enormous. In my opinion, it is possible to see the green colour extending from the map in the next 30 years.
Although the world is covered by 71% of water, most water come from oceans, which is too salty to use. There is fresh water around 3% of the earth's water. The drought is a global problem. It happens around the world, including a place in a tropical climate as Thailand. My country is not facing desertification as the Sahel region, but the drought conditions in Thailand earlier this year is evidence that the problem is getting worse every year. The tap water is still salty after using the home water filter. The farmers in the north and the northeastern are running out of water for their crops.
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Women harvest baobab fruits
Credit: Aduna |
Back to Paga, people plant more baobab to create green barriers to save land and desertification. Although the baobab tree can bear fruits after 200 years old, it can live up to 2,000 years old. I think it is a good investment for the environment and community income. However, when an expert concerns monocropping, I agree with them. We should plant different types of tree species, so they can bring back nutrients to soil when the plants die. In contrast, planting the same crops in the same area for long terms can damage the nutrients of soil. For example, rubber trees and palm oil trees are popular among farmers in Thailand. Both plants create value to farmers, but little did they know that they would destroy soil fertility. In fact, the problem begins with deforestation in order to make agriculture in Thailand.
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An avocado plantation in Chile.
Photograph by Alice Facchini |
The drought problem from agriculture also happens in the Americas continent with avocado in Mexico and Chile. In Mexico, they destroy pine forests for planting avocado. In Chile, the land where farmers grow avocados are green while the land nearby are brown with drought. Moreover, the river in Chile is now dry because avocados require a lot of water to grow and produce fruits. As an avocado lover, I feel sad.
Therefore, I hope people in Africa will be doing great with the Great Green Wall. Humans exploit nature too much and we have to fix it. It is our job to help the environmental problems together and we need to create a safe environment for our children to grow. Their future is not going to be worse than our generation. In addition, if you want to grow trees for your land, you should plant various kinds of native species that are friendly to our environment.
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Question
What are your ideas to help Thailand from the drought?
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Reference
There was a lot to think about in Mae's summary of her long source, and then in her response to it. As usual, the response interested me more as Mae effectively related to her own life and issues in it, which helped me to make similar connections.
ReplyDeleteLike Mae, I also enjoy avocados, but had never thought before that they might harmful to the environment. I think the avocados I eat in Thailand are normally imported from Australia, where they are a popular food, although a little expensive. I have no idea whether they harm the surrounding land or not. I suspect they are not such a problem to cultivate in Australia because we have strong laws and if one farmer's methods, such as high water use, were harming neighbours, those neighbours would be able to get legal solutions to their problems. Australia's courts are completely independent of the government, and often give rulings that the government dislikes, which is a good sigh: the job of courts is to apply the law independently of what the government, or even the social majority, might want. Good law also aims for justice, although the rule of law and legal systems often serves injustice, as examples from history easily show.
But getting back to land use, Mae's comments about monoculture reminded me of the farming area where I grew up. My father had practiced monoculture for many years, but when he learned that it would be more profitable to protect his land by rotating crops, say switching from suger cane to soy beans for a season or two, he sensibly did that to care for the land and boost his income.
But Tops doesn't open till 10:30; I don't know where I can get avocados to enjoy on toast with my morning coffee at 6:00 in the morning.