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Like most people living along the Sahel – the drylands between Africa’s tropical savannahs and the Sahara Desert – Mustafa Ba is all too familiar with the effects of desertification. Thanks to a combination of overgrazing and deforestation, he has watched...

Desertification in Africa's Sahel region may be driving a range of problems including terrorism. Gavin Haines investigates whether a project to reforest the region could help. Since French forces were deployed to Mali earlier this year, the Sahel has emerged as...

Forests play crucial ecological, social and economic roles in drylands, but in many regions they have become degraded. Worldwide, millions of hectares of dryland forest landscapes need to be restored to help tackle global challenges such as poverty, climate change,...

With EU-backed forces advancing across Mali, the need for European and other donors to accelerate the development process in Africa’s poorest regions appears ever more pressing. For development experts a simple, yet unheralded solution exists - planting trees. “Agroforestry is the...

Experts presented achievements towards the realisation of the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel, a pan-African initiative to halt desertification, while improving food security and contributing to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Launched in December 2006 at the...