Restoration Possibilities

Desertification is not always irreversible. The Great Green Wall aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land across Africa by planting an 8,000-kilometer band of vegetation from Senegal to Djibouti.

In China, the Loess Plateau project turned 35,000 square kilometers of eroded wasteland into productive terraces and forests over twenty years. Crop yields rose, flooding fell, and local incomes climbed.

Simple methods like stone bunding — arranging rocks to slow water runoff — have revived drylands across the Sahel, proving that recovery need not be expensive.