Where does Yacouba Sawadogo live?
Background. The northern portions of Burkina Faso fall in the Sahel Belt, a semi-arid region between the Sahara Desert to the north and tropical savannahs further south. The region periodically suffers from drought.
How did Yacouba stop the desert?
By adding stone bunding, Yacouba trapped the water so that it slowly trickled through. This gives the soil time to absorb the water and to stop topsoil loss. Yacouba’s innovation didn’t stop there. He also added termites to the planting pits.
What did Yacouba do?
Yacouba Sawadogo is known as “the man who stopped the desert”. Starting around 1980 during a phase of severe drought, he has successfully created an almost 40-hectare forest on formerly barren and abandoned land.
What did Yacouba Sawadogo efforts?
Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer from Burkina Faso, stopped desertification in his village by working together with his family to plant trees which have now grown into a vast forest.
What stopped the desert in Sahel?
Desertification has affected many countries in the Sahel, including Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Chad. In 1980, Yacouba decided to fight the desert’s spread by reviving an ancient farming technique called zai, which led to forest growth and increased soil quality.
What is land desertification?
Desertification is a form of land degradation by which fertile land becomes desert.
What is the Zai technique?
Zaï or Tassa is a farming technique to dig pits (20-30 cm long and deep and 90 cm apart) in the soil during the preseason to catch water and concentrate compost. The technique is traditionally used in western Sahel (Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali) to restore degraded drylands and increase soil fertility.
How do zai pits work?
The technique involves digging a series of pits roughly 20-40cm across by 20cm deep during the dry season. Manure is added to the pit and when the first rains arrive the pits are planted with seeds. The pits help to hold some of the surface water which comes during periods of heavy rain.
Is the Sahel a desert?
The sunshine duration in the Sahel approaches desert levels, and is comparable to that in the Arabian Desert, for example, even though the Sahel is only a steppe and not a desert.
What does the Unccd do?
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (UNCCD) is a Convention to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought through national action programs that incorporate long-term strategies supported by …