Green Walls
Green wall efforts around the world are generally not aimed at landscape level wildlife conservation or species habitat restoration as their principal purpose. Instead, they are often efforts directed at slowing or altering the effects of climate change and/or mitigation for our overuse of landscapes (e.g., overgrazing, tilling, or mining) which has contributed to desertification and loss of fertile lands and habitats. Nevertheless, these larger Green Wall landscape restoration and rebuilding efforts can be viewed and organized, I believe, within “Half-Earth” project types in that they may help to develop local and regional micro-climate and terrain areas wherein more wildlife can be sustained and habitat types diversified.
For example, the Great Green Wall in the Sahel region of Africa, to the south of the expanding Sahara desert, aims by 2030 to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land. Other similar efforts are being mounted in Asia, North America, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
1. AFRICA
- The Great Green Wall
- United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification – Great Green Wall Initiative
- The Great Green Wall | National Geographic Society
2. ASIA
- Google Earth – China’s Green Wall
- Great Green Wall (China) – Wikipedia
- Reuters, The Great Green Wall, China’s Farmers push back the desert one tree at a time.
- Mongolia to build “green wall” along borders to combat desertification
(Source: Xinhua) Project for Combating Desertification in Inner Mongolia. ULAN BATOR, June 13, Mongolia will build a “green wall” along its borders by planting at least 16 million trees by 2030 to combat desertification, according to the presidential office of Mongolia. To achieve the goal, professional agronomists have been appointed to all units of the General Authority for Border Protection, and trainings on planting and caring for trees have been provided to contract or conscript servicemen, the presidential office said in a statement on Monday.
The effort is part of Mongolia’s national tree-planting campaign initiated by President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, the statement said. The campaign was officially launched last October with an aim to plant at least 1 billion trees by 2030 to combat climate change and desertification. Almost 77 percent of Mongolian territory is affected by desertification and land degradation, according to the country’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
3. Middle East
4. Australia
