Deforestation damages the global environment. For one thing, it leads to erosion. And deteriorating soil can eventually become desert land. Several ambitious reforestation projects aim to regreen desert land. The most ambitious aims to turn back the growth of the Sahara.

We are coming to realize that soil does more than provide a place for plants to grow. Healthy soil can also mitigate flooding, drought, and even climate chage. Plants growing in healthy soil—and the soil itself—suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it. And healthy soil depends on the life in it: worms, nematodes, mites, bacteria, fungi, etc. Each species performs a certain function to maintain the soil’s health.

Monoculture farming and deforestation harm this life hidden in the soil When soil degradation removes a species, no other species can perform its functions. Soil-degrading farming practices didn’t start with modern industrial farming.

Industrial farming has only sped up a process that may have begun in prehistoric times. Many desert areas were once forested. And farming may have contributed to making them deserts beginning thousands of years ago. Still, it’s not too late for reforestation to reclaim them.

Regreening the Kubuqi Desert

People have lived as herders in Mongolia’s Kubuqi Desert for centuries. Grazing cattle ate what little grew there. By 1988, the region’s 740,000 people lived in poverty. A local saltworks faced bankruptcy. The region lacked a direct road to the nearest railroad, 40 miles away. The salt had to travel almost 220 miles to get to market.

Kubuqi native Wang Wenbiao, founder of Elion Resources Group, took control of the saltworks and decided to build a road. Desert sand quickly covered it. Wang determined to reclaim the desert for the sake of all its residents. Elion initiated the Kubuqi Ecological Restoration Project that year in partnership with the Chinese government and local people.

At first, locals were paid to plant trees, most of which died. So Elion provided financial incentives to keep the trees alive once planted. It also devised a way to plant willow seedlings in 10 seconds each using high-pressure water jets. The whole reforestation project required a lot of trial and error, but after 25 years, it began to turn a profit.

Thirty years after the project started, a third of the desert had turned green. Sand dunes no longer threatened to bury farms and villages there. Cattle thrive. New restaurants and hotels draw tourists to the area.

Drought-resistant trees and bushes hold the sandy soil in place, but real money comes from farming licorice, a cornerstone of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Besides bringing a lot of money to the area, growing licorice also restores the soil. After it’s done so, the land can support such other crops as potatoes, tomatoes, and grapes.

A large solar farm now coexists will cropland. What’s more, people who raise cattle have been able to increase their herds.

Similar reforestation projects have started both in and out of China.

Restoring the Loess Plateau

The Loess Plateau in China is an area about the size of France. Nearly a millennium and a half ago, it fed a quarter of the Chinese population. Even pre-industrial farming practices led to erosion that slowly but surely destroyed the soil.

The Communist Chinese policy of forbidding private ownership of land and trying to control everything from Beijing hastened desertification that had already become evident by the beginning of the 20th century. Remaining residents of the Loess Plateau lived in poverty.

A program to restore the plateau began in 1994. The government declared a “household responsibility system.” It still didn’t allow private ownership of land, but it restored rights to long-term leases. The new policies gave farmers and herders renewed incentive to take care of the land, a prerequisite for the project to succeed.

The project entailed terracing the land, improving the fertility of the soil, and planting crops that reduce erosion and sedimentation in the Yellow River. The area now grows wheat, corn, and a variety of fruit and nut trees.

Unfortunately, the speed and scope of the project required low crop diversity and failed to take advantage of local knowledge and traditions. It will require greater biodiversity and commitment to reforestation to maintain the project’s gains.

Both Chinese projects work with land that was productive recently in geological terms. They may not be ambitious enough for long-term desert regreening. A couple of projects in Africa aim to reclaim land that has been desert for centuries.

Regreening the Sinai Peninsula

Lake Bardawil

Ties van der Hoeven and the company he co-founded, Weather Makers, have plans to terraform the Sinai Peninsula. They want to turn it from a barren desert to a lush, green area of forests, wetlands, and farmland.

He worked in the dredging industry for many years and devised new methods that were both more efficient and more eco-friendly.

The Egyptian government contacted Van der Hoeven through his former employer to restore Lake Bardawil, a lagoon on the northern coast of the Sinai. It is separated from the Mediterranean Sea only by narrow barrier islands. Once, it was an important source of fish about 130 feet deep. Its depth has been reduced to only 5 feet.

The shallower the lake became, the faster water evaporated and the saltier it became. Restoring Lake Bardawil should restore the viability of the fishing industry there.

Van der Hoeven studied the history of the area, its weather patterns, geology, tides, and what lived there. He found records of wood harvests in the archives of St. Catherine’s monastery from 1,500 years ago. Cave paintings from thousands of years before that showed a lush, green countryside. And satellite imagery reveals numerous rivers that used to flow from the peninsula’s mountains to the Mediterranean.

Beyond Lake Bardawil

So Van der Hoeven became convinced that restoring the lagoon would not be a large enough project. He founded Weather Makers to restore the entire peninsula.

Then, he visited the Loess Plateau and witnessed the heavy rains that no longer contribute to flooding. He learned that building up areas on Spain’s Atlantic coast directly contributed to lack of rain farther inland. And, it turns out, to flooding in Germany.

According to Van der Hoeven’s vision for the Sinai, regreening that desert would not only have local benefit. It would also benefit the natural potential of the entire Middle East region.

Since the Sinai has been desert much longer than either the Kubuqi Desert or the Loess Plateau, it will require a longer and more complicated process to restore it. He believes he has the technological tools he needs.

Unfortunately, the conflict in the Sinai Peninsula between the Egyptian government and Islamic insurgents add geopolitical complications. Van der Hoeven’s success in reforestation and desert reclamation, therefore, appears to depend on support both from Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and local residents. Sisi is close to signing contracts to restore Lake Bardawil, which is an important first step.

Terraforming the Sahel

The semi-arid Sahel region of Africa sits between the Sahara Desert to the north and humid savannahs to the south. The rainy season lasts no more than four months, and total annual rainfall averages only 4-8 inches. The whole region suffered from drought from about 1968-1973 and again from a about 1983-1985.

The human population has made the problem worse by cutting down the area’s few trees for firewood and cropland. Over the past century, the Sahel has expanded southward and dried up savannah land. The Sahara itself has similarly encroached on the northern Sahel.

But now, in some places, at least, the locals are beginning to fight back with reforestation. They are planting and maintaining trees that grow in the semi-arid conditions: acacia, mahogany, neem, and especially baobab.

Baobabs are succulents that can thrive in dry conditions. They can live as long as two thousand years. They bear a valuable fruit, but only when they reach the age of about 200. The tree has great cultural significance, but until recently little apparent economic value. Farmers cut it down to make room for cash crops. And, of course, the deforestation caused the desert to creep southward. Baobab has lately become an export crop that brings about $3.5 billion to the area annually.

The Great Green Wall vs the Sahara

This work in the Sahel is part of a larger project, possibly the most ambitious regreening project in history. In 2007, the African Union launched the Great Green Wall. It involves cooperation among 20 different countries and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

It envisions a wall of trees that will stretch across the continent. And not only that, it will be part of a larger attempt to improve soil quality and reverse the cancerous growth of the desert. In part, it relies on rediscovering traditional farming practices for conserving water.

For example, one practice called zai builds formations of stones that hold water. It soaks into the ground during the dry seasons. In other places, villagers plant elephant grass. It holds the soil and provides raw materials for weaving baskets, another exportable product.

So far, the Great Green Wall has comprised only small, pilot projects, but it has already regreened more than 115,000 square miles of land in all 20 nations. This reforestation becomes feasible only because it provides cash to the local economy and therefore incentive to let the trees grow and spread.

Multinational companies have become involved in planting and harvesting not only baobab, but also other trees and crops that have export potential. It remains to be seen if the Great Green Wall can regreen the Sahel.

Certainly, if the effort degenerates into monocultures, it will not succeed in restoring the soil. People who make the political and economic decisions that drive the project don’t live in the Sahel. They must keep aware of conditions in the dry country and make sure their decisions do no harm locally.

It’s not enough just to plant stuff. New social, economic, and political systems need to be devised from the ground up (literally).

The prospect for desert restoration projects

Globally, it appears that regreening projects in general are growing in favor. For example, the United Nations launched its Decade on Ecosystem Restoration in 2021. It realizes that it can’t compartmentalize its environmental initiatives. Only by working on everything at once can it accomplish its goals, both technologically and rallying people to support the causes.

Can we restore all our desert areas, feed the world’s growing population, and reverse global warming? It appears that lack of imagination is a greater roadblock than development of all the technology.

The President Kennedy conceived of landing a man on the moon at a time when the Soviets appeared to have the superior space technology. The whole country caught his vision and made it happen. Now, numerous individuals all over the world have conceived of regreening deserts. Can enough of the world catch the vision and make it happen? Or will criminals, warlords, and people who profit from deforestation derail it?

Sources:

China’s greening of the vast Kubuqi Desert is a model for land restoration projects everywhere / Charlie Campbell, Time. July 27, 2017
‘Our biggest challenge? Lack of imagination’: the scientists turning the desert green / Steve Rose, The Guardian. March 20, 2021
Turning desert to fertile farmland on the Loess Plateau / Richard Blaustein, Rethink Earth. April 15, 2018
The wall holding back a desert / Richard Gray, BBC. September 3, 2019