--- title: Africa's Ambitious "Great Green Wall" | TIME description: The plan to build a five thousand mile band of trees across the Africa begins in Senegal, where trees are already being planted. canonical: https://time.com/video/jtNErHGe/ og:title: Africa's Ambitious "Great Green Wall" og:description: The plan to build a five thousand mile band of trees across the Africa begins in Senegal, where trees are already being planted. og:url: https://time.com/video/jtNErHGe/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/jtNErHGe/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Africa's Ambitious "Great Green Wall" twitter:description: The plan to build a five thousand mile band of trees across the Africa begins in Senegal, where trees are already being planted. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/jtNErHGe/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Africa's Ambitious "Great Green Wall" > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Africa's Ambitious "Great Green Wall" [Watch (HLS stream): Africa's Ambitious "Great Green Wall"](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/jtNErHGe.m3u8) (4:24)  _Published 2013-06-10. The plan to build a five thousand mile band of trees across the Africa begins in Senegal, where trees are already being planted._ --- Oct 11, 2023 9:21 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [TIME100 Africa Impact Awards 2023 Red Carpet: What Excites You Most About Africa’s Future?](/video/crtOjJyt/) ### TIME100 Africa Impact Awards 2023 Red Carpet: What Excites You Most About Africa’s Future? [Cyril Ramaphosa Set to be South Africa's New President](/video/BCoKZhDo/) ### Cyril Ramaphosa Set to be South Africa's New President [Know Right Now: Africa's Great Migration From the Serengeti to Maasai Mara](/video/zYRkKbTD/) ### Know Right Now: Africa's Great Migration From the Serengeti to Maasai Mara --- ## Transcript >> Beyond this gate and the sand, there's more sand. The man on the right hopes it will be the sand that saves Africa because of the trees now growing out of it. This is the start of the Great Green Wall in Senegal. -[ foreign language ] >> We'll try to put a plan in place to reverse the drift of the desert and allow people to better live from their land. -[ foreign language ] >> This is how that plan looks on paper, a 9- miled wide band of trees stretching nearly 5, 000 miles across 11 African countries, from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east. The trees are to protect the African drylands south of the Sahara Desert- a place called the Sahel where humans are finding it harder to survive as the climate changes and the quality of the land gets poorer- the Great Green Wall wants to change that. -[ foreign language ] >> When trees were there, there's a whole life which organizes itself- the microbial life- the soil that builds up regenerates and gets richer, which allows other organisms to live even if we don't see them. >> The great vision of the Great Wall is that by putting trees here life for the millions of Africans living behind them will be better. -[ foreign language ] >> Trees are what we call carbon sinks. They give off oxygen and absorb carbon gas. That will be a great thing for the interior of Senegal and therefore, the capital, Dakar. >> But before the Great Wall starts to work for Africa's big cities, it has to work in places like Widou Thiengoli. This village in the Sahel began planting Senegal's 340- mile stretch of the wall 5 years ago. -[ unk ] >> A modest start for a project so ambitious, the World Bank is promising nearly 2 billion dollars to pay for it. The African Union and United Nations are also giving support. The gate leads to one of the Great Wall's plantation areas. This plot is six and a half times the size of New York Central Park. It's a dry season but when it rains, people say this area is completely green and so dense it's hard to walk. Musa Dir lives close to the plantation. He barely makes a living raising a few sheep but the Great Wall might change that. The gum arabic tree has been planted along Senegal's bit of the wall. The sap is used in many things from chewing gum to fireworks. It's a new source of income for people like Musa. -[ foreign language ] >> A day will come when the Great Green Wall will change the situation in the country for the better. -[ foreign language ] >> But it needs water to grow. A rainfall in the Sahel is low and in recent years has become unpredictable. Mary Harper writes about Somalia where drought and famine 2 years ago showed the need for action. But even if nature cooperates, the humans who'll be living next to the Great Wall might not. >> Even if they understand the idea that planting trees in the long term could do wonders for their environment, they are held hostage by short- termism. They are living day to day, in fact, sometimes hour by hour. So if they see a belt of tress, the first thing they're gonna see is charcoal and firewood. >> But the tricky business of surviving in the Sahel isn't the only reason why the Great Wall might not work. The trees have to cross countries with other problems. >> You look at Niger. You look at Sudan. You look at Mali. You look at Chad. A lot of these regions either have rebel groups operating there or they have weak, difficult governments. >> Trees don't go well on battlefields but they do in peaceful Widou Thiengoli. The people here need the Great Green Wall to work. If it doesn't, this land will get harder to live on. That's the message Senegal is giving but progress on the Wall in other countries has been much slower. 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