Een prachtige documentaire over hoe Yacouba Sawadogo de woestijn tegenhoudt en de Sahel woestijn weer vruchtbaar weet te maken.

Na het eerste deel van deze serie waarin een stuk woestijn in het Midden Oosten in Jordanië werd hersteld nu een voorbeeld uit Afrika waar de Sahel woestijn wordt teruggedrongen op een simpele manier. Bekijk het prachtige verhaal van Yacouba Sawadogo die laat zien hoe 1 persoon letterlijk de woestijn kan tegenhouden. Wat zou er gebeuren als inplaats van 1 persoon, duizenden mensen deze simpele technieken leren en toe gaan passen?

Yacouba Sawadogo is a farmer from the west African nation of Burkina Faso who has been successfully using traditional farming techniques from the region to restore soils damaged by desertification and drought. 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. The most recent major drought in occurred during the 1970s, resulting in a famine which killed a great number of people.

One effect of the drought was widespread desertification. Combined with other factors such as overgrazing, poor land management, and overpopulation, the drought led to a substantial increase in barren land, particularly on slopes, due to the comparative difficulty of cultivating sloping land. Uncultivated, the soil experienced increased erosion and compaction. Together with Mathieu Ouédraogo, another local farm innovator, Yacouba Sawadogo began experimenting with techniques for rehabilitating damaged soil in about 1980. He relies on simple approaches traditional to the region: cordons pierreux and zaï holes. Both Sawadogo and Ouédraogo have engaged in extension and outreach efforts to spread their techniques throughout the region.

Cordons pierreux are thin lines of fist-sized stones laid across fields. Their purpose is to form a catchment. When rain falls, it pushes silt across the surface of the field, which then fetches up against the cordon. Slowing down the flow of water gives it more time to soak into the earth. The accumulated silt also provides a comparatively fertile spot for seeds of local plants to sprout. The plants slow the water even further in turn, and their roots break up the compacted soil, thereby making it easier for more water to soak in.

Zaï holes also catch water, but take a slightly different approach. They are holes dug in the soil. Traditionally they were used in a limited way to restore barren land. Yacouba Sawadogo introduced the innovation of filling them with manure and other biodegradable waste, in order to provide a source of nutrients for plant life. The manure attracts termites, whose tunnels help break up the soil further. He also increased the size of the holes slightly over the traditional models. Zaï holes have been used to help cultivate trees, sorghum, and millet.

Over a period of more than two decades, Yacouba Sawadogo’s work with zaï holes allowed him to create a forested area of approximately fifty acres.

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