Stopping the sand along the highway of hope
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from January 1989.
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Despite its name, the road runs through a region which offers few signs of optimism. On the outskirts of Nouakchott a sprawling settlement of squatters has formed since the early 1980s. It is filled with refugees from the drought the country has endured almost unremittingly for the past 20 years. Further on, makeshift tents and wooden and tin shacks give way to vast expanses of sand. Great waves of it extend as far as the eye can see, broken only by a few hardy desert shrubs or a lone acacia tree poised atop spindly grey roots laid bare by erosion from the wind.
Then there are the dunes. Massive and imposing, they threaten to engulf the road, the meagre pastures for goats and camels, and the few settlements which have managed to hold out against the sands' unrelenting advance. Until a few years ago little attempt had been made to halt the spreading dunes. Now, however, with support from Denmark, the UN Capital Development Fund, the UN Development Programme and several other donors, two methods have been found to stop their advance. Near the town of Boutilimit, some 200 kilometres east of Nouakchott, a grove of young drought-resistant trees springs from the earth, stabilising the dunes naturally rather that mechanically.
According to Houcine Khatteli, a Tunisian planning expert from the UN Food Agriculture Organisation, the secret behind this flourishing patch of green is an afforestation method called "deep planting." It minimises a tree's need for water by taking advantage of the natural moisture hidden below the sands. "That moisture has been stocked for several years," says Khatteli. "It is buried beneath a dry zone of 30 centimetres." A newly introduced sapling need be watered only once, when it is planted. The single dousing maintains the plant until its roots grow down to tap the moisture buried in the soil.
Using this technique, and taking advantage of the scarce natural rainfall, 706 hectares of dunes have been planted with 15 different tree species. Nine are native to Mauritania. Six are drought-resistant varieties new to the region. The results are encouraging. A short distance from the groves are several mounds of sand which have been "fixed" by another method. Workers have laced their taps with windbreaks, made of dead branches, palm leaves and panels woven of twigs and leaves, which anchor the sand firmly in place. This technique is especially useful in areas where moisture lies buried too deep to make tree planting viable. It has been applied to 535 hectares.
Mauritania is the most affected by desertification of all the drought-prone countries of the Sahel, a group of African nations just below the Sahara desert. The country covers more than one million square kilometres, but only one percent of the land can be used to grow crops.
Apart from a few irrigated oases, all arable area is in the south. Three-quarters of Mauritania is virtually uninhabitable desert. The remainder is arid and vulnerable to wind erosion from frequent sandstorms.
Although the 1987 and 1988 rains have been favourable, 15 years of drought since 1967 have taken a heavy toll. Says Khatteli: "Desertification is a process which is launched by Man. It begins with a destruction of equilibrium. Man has cut down trees for firewood, building an fodder for animals."
Traditionally, 85 percent of Mauritania's population, now nearing two million, was nomadic. Herders moved with the seasonal rains to briefly flourishing oases, which provided pasture for their camels, goats and sheep. Never staying in one place longer than the land could support them, they lived in harmony with their environment.
But as the rains failed year after year, growing human and animal popuCont'd..on page 5 from page 3
lations put increasing pressure on ever sparser grassland. Overgrazing destroyed the vegetion. Desert scrub was denuded and trees cut down to provide the firewood which furnishes 90 percent of the country's energy requirements. With fuelwood consumption about eight times greater then tree growth, the country's already scant tree cover was reduced by almost a third in less than a decade.
As plant life was destroyed, the soil was exposed to erosion and left devoid of vital nutrients. The desert advanced inexorably. More than one-third of the country's estimated one million cattle died, as did 20 percent of the six million sheep and goats.
Deprived of their animals, the nomads were forced to abandon their traditional way of life and flocked to the cities. Now only 15 percent of the population lives outside urban area. Nouakchott - built for 30,000 people - has a population of more than 500,000.
The loss of protective vegetation also increased the frequency of shifting sand dunes. In several area of Mauritania they threatened to inundate roads, dams, palm groves, irrigation projects and even entire villages. But now the odds are shifting in favour of those mobilising to halt the dunes. Fixation techniques have save more than 10 kilometres of the Highway of Hope which were in danger of being swallowed up. The threat of being engulfed was also removed from communities inhabited by a total of 13,000 people.
In addition to saving buildings, the blocking efforts prevented sand from nundating 715 hectares of arable land, 656 hectares of palm groves containing 114 wells and 7,800 date palms, and numerous pasture areas.
People in four villages were able to reoccupy homes abandoned to sand encroachment. In Boutilimit, an antidesertification research centre was dug out and rehabilitated.
Fifteen mobile and two permanent nurseries were created which produced over 534,350 saplings to used for reforestation. A antidesertification research programme was established.
"We put a great deal of importancce on the training of villagers so that they will be able to carry on afforestation without any foreign assistance," says Khatteli.
Costs for fixing dunes by planting trees averaged around $300 per hectare. The windbreak method cost up to $2,000 a hectare. The expense was increased because the trials were carried out on small, widely dispersed sites and in the face of frequent sandstorms which took their toll on trucks and construction equipment.
Based on an overall antidesertification plan, Mauritania has now prepared a $23.5 million strategy for further sand dune fixation. A donor conference will be held in 1989 to raise the money. If the programme moves forward, the Highway of Hope may yet live up to its name. - GEMINI NEWS About the Author: MARY LYNN HANLEY is an information officer with the United Nations Development Programme.
