Fighting back the sands
As the debate on climate change continues, Elayne Devlin reflects on her recent visit to Senegal and how the effect of climate change is having an dramatic impact on children and their families.
If you don’t quite believe that climate change is affecting developing countries, you need look no further than Northern Senegal. Several communities in this region have witnessed a dramatic change to their landscape in recent years. In the village of Rao Peul, village elder, Ousmand Fall, age 52, explains;
“Every year, the rainy season gets shorter, the land is drying out. We used to cut down the trees as we needed wood for cooking but that activity, combined with less rain meant the village was slowly overtaken by sand”.
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| (Maymouna is pictured on the right in the navy dress) |
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Maymouna Ba, (Ousmane’s daughter) shares a picture with me that was taken 10 years ago when she was eight. Then, 51 families were struggling on a daily basis to keep the desert sands from encroaching on their front doors. Maymouna, now 18, went on to explain “we used to call the shovel, the key, as every morning we had to shovel sand from the front door to get out.”
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| (Maymouana displays the old photo of her village) |
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Ousmand recalls the day when the roof of a house collapsed under the weight of the sand that had gathered over night, “”with luck, no one was injured, but the family were too frightened to stay”.
The encroaching sands coupled with the reduced rainfall forced families towards the cities of Senegal to earn a living. Some young men decided to immigrate.
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| The disused channel stretches into the horizon behind Lamine |
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A couple of miles from Rao Peul, I meet Lamine Dieng, a member of the local environment committee who shows me a nearby run-off channel, constructed by the government of Senegal, three years ago. Primarily, intended to take flood waters away from the city of Saint Louis, the flood waters were also to be used to irrigate fields. However, as Lamine explains the lack of floods and rain in past three years has meant the channel is dry, it’s only use now is as a watering hole for animals.
Back in the village of Rao Peu, the community and Plan fought back the sand. Ten years ago, with financial and technical assistance; the families planted trees around the village to stop the advancing sands. The project worked and the village has been reclaimed. There are now over 120 families in the community, many have returned from the urban areas as it is now possible to farm again on the surrounding lands.
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| Ten years of growth has produced strong trees to protect Rao Peul |
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Abdou, from Plan Senegal explains that the communities in this region also receive training in growing different types of peanuts; ones that do not need as much rain. This is helping to restore some of the agricultural production in the area and enabling families to earn a living once more.
Elayne Devlin is Communications Manager for Plan Ireland. Her visit to Senegal was part of a Special Feature that was published in The Irish Examiner on January 7th and 8th.
Below you can download a selection of articles from The Irish Examiner Special Feature on Senegal and view how see how building a mud stove can help the protect the environment:
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