“The Sahel is the crucible of the biggest threats facing all of humanity today,” says Alexander Asen, creative director at Civic, who recently produced a documentary on the project. Like Fatty, he sees a possible solution to those problems in the Great Green Wall, and previously led a campaign promoting it at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

The Great Green Wall is an African-led initiative that aims to build an 8,000km barrier of plants and trees at the southern border of the Sahara desert, from Senegal in the west, to Djibouti in the east, in the hope of rebuilding what used to be a lush and fertile region. The idea emerged in the 1980s, as climate change, unsustainable agricultural practices and population growth started depleting natural resources and visibly increased desertification. The project eventually launched in 2007, with the support of the African Union.

Almost 15 years later, progress has been slower than expected, with only about 18% of the wall planted. But the idea of a simple barrier of trees across Africa has evolved into something bigger: regenerating a whole region. The Great Green Wall is now a mosaic of local initiatives which, beyond rebuilding natural woodlands, are providing food through climate-smart agriculture, creating green jobs, supporting women to become more independent and rebuilding the economy for the younger generation.

So far, 18m hectares of degraded land has been restored and 350,000 jobs have been created across the Sahel. If the Great Green Wall achieves its objectives, by 2030, 100m hectares of land will have been restored, 250m tonnes of carbon captured, and 10m jobs created. But it will cost between $36bn and $43bn, on top of what’s been spent already.

The project is funded by the member states of the African Union and international partners, including the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, who together in January 2021 committed $14bn to the 'Great Green Wall Accelerator'. This money will direct funding to local organisations, and help them coordinate and monitor their work.

There is a discrepancy between this growing political momentum in the corridors of power, and the awareness of the project in the regions affected. Efforts to engage local populations are needed, says Asen. “People on the frontlines often have no idea this movement is happening, we need far deeper awareness and incentives”. The Great Green Wall can only succeed, he says, if local people – the “ultimate guardians” of the project – adopt it as their own.

“On one hand, there are financial challenges, and on the other, there are challenges around community engagement,” Asen says.

In the Gambia, Civic is spearheading a new pilot programme, the Great Green Wall Frontline, in partnership with the African Union. The programme aims to encourage local people to help shape the future of the Gambia’s section of the Great Green Wall, through citizens’ assemblies. Fatty hopes to reach everyone across the northern bank of the Gambia river, starting with a “leadership briefing” that will involve all local leaders: head of districts, village heads and village development committees as well as traditional communicators, spiritual leaders and the elders. 

“All of these structures in the village need to understand what it is that the Great Green Wall entails and how we are going to deliver it,” says Fatty.

A lot of environmental initiatives have come and gone in the region, he explains, “but we are yet to see a visible, tangible impact of these projects.” There needs to be “this cross-cutting dialogue, this intergenerational dialogue to really understand what has not been going well… What did we do wrong? How can we do it right?”

Rather than imposing decisions from the top down, Fatty says, the project needs to either reform or build on existing systems. 

“The power must be put in the hands of the local people who are on the ground,” he says – not in the hands of the international NGOs who come and go again with no lasting impact.

Community members should be involved in the main effort of tree planting, but they also need to understand that their behaviour needs to change, that they need to stop practices such as cutting down trees to create farming space or engaging in timber trade.

The citizens’ assemblies will create a pilot model and a DIY toolkit that can be used by other activists across the country. Ultimately, a national assembly will present the government with feedback from local people that can feed into policies on land use, tree-planting incentives and so on. “We want the issues of climate change and land degradation to be mainstreamed across every sector of planning and development,” says Fatty. He hopes other countries will follow. 

“My brothers are jumping into the boat across the Mediterranean, because they feel like the pasture here is no longer green... to restore our pasture to make our place green, we need to revive the power of the soils. 

“And this can only be done when there is a clear understanding, when there's a citizen-powered movement that can drive the change of delivering 12.5m trees on the soil in the Gambia, restoring hectares of degraded land across every community.”

If local solutions are scaled up, the Great Green Wall could dramatically improve  biodiversity, and reduce poverty, mass emigration, violence and food insecurity in the Sahel – all of which would have positive knock-on effects for other parts of the world by helping tackle climate change and mass migration.

But huge challenges remain. Even after world leaders committed $14bn in January, African Union president Moussa Faki Mahamat reminded them that the investments made until now had been much lower than sums committed – and were often characterised by a certain “cacophony”, he said.

While international partners had shown enthusiasm for the initiative when it launched, 14 years later the “dream has somewhat faded”, he added. While the Sahel was fighting against terrorism, political crises and conflicts, malnutrition, Covid-19 and other pandemics, it would be a “fatal mistake” to let climate degradation increase in the region.

Even if local people become aware of the problem, conflict and poverty mean they must do whatever they can to feed their family. “People understand the problem, but they are helpless. So they will chop down the last tree, in order to survive,” says Fatty.

While timber trade is banned, millions of dollars worth of wood still leave the Gambia each year. The system is rife with corruption: $50 is enough to make a border guard avert his eyes when a truck full of logs passes by. Fatty, who used to work for the municipal council, explains that low wages make people more vulnerable to bribery. “When the police are not getting paid, they find it hard to serve and protect.” 

There needs to be a “spiritual” change, Fatty says: “To save the world, we need to get inside the problems of greed, ego and convenience.” People in the Gambia used to be “as one with nature”, he explains. Many ancient customs were rooted in the idea that one mustn’t exploit the earth. He mentions the role of the Kankuran – a traditional spirit – who used to threaten villagers if they picked unripe fruit from the forest. Ancient laws used to safeguard natural resources; but colonisation and Western influence led Gambians to lose their sense of purpose, Fatty says.

He thinks the citizens’ assemblies can help reconnect people with these values, and give them the power to take action at the same time.

“The solutions are already on the ground, it's a matter of how we scale this up… I think there's a lot of things that can be done for us to really get the productivity of our land back. It's just a matter of putting the right people at the wheel. And of course, providing them with the right help and the right tools that they need.

“We are building hope, once more, something we never really have. We have lived with frustration for far too long,” says Fatty. The Great Green Wall was designed “in the corridors of the African Union”, but has never been rolled out to people on the frontline, he adds – until now.

“We need to get people on the frontline to restore land. This, I think, is the only hope for our continent.” 

Top picture by Simon Townsley
All other photos courtesy of Great Green Wall
Design by Fanny Blanquier