CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Keeping the Sahara in Check

By Kaci Racelma Reprint | | Print |

Kaci Racelma

ALGIERS, Dec 29 2006 (IPS) - Two hundred kilometres. A long distance to some, perhaps, but in the context of desertification in Algeria, alarmingly short.

Going in to 2007, the Sahara will have advanced to within 200 kilometres of the Mediterranean coastline of this North African state. And, warns President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, it may well extend further north to the shores of his country if more concerted action is not taken.

He was speaking at the third International Festival of Cultures and Civilisations of Desert Peoples, held Dec. 13-20 in the Algerian capital of Algiers. For several years, said Bouteflika, “Algeria lost, each year, 40,000 hectares of its most fertile lands because of desertification.”

Ninety percent of the country is already desert, including the south and a large part of the north. Desertification has also affected 13 million hectares of territory over the past 10 years, according to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Not everyone sounds quite as pessimistic a note as the head of state.

“The desert is today slowed in its progress towards the north thanks to different initiatives carried out to counter it,” says Lakhdar Brouri of the High Commission for Development of the Steppe (Haut commissariat au développement de la steppe, HCDS). (A steppe is a vast plain, covered in grass and typically treeless, which has a semi-arid climate.)

In the 1970s, a large-scale project called the “green barrier” was introduced. It involved putting in place a stretch of greenery some 400 kilometres long and 150 kilometres wide between the desertified south and Mediterranean north.

Unfortunately, says Malik Raheb, an agricultural engineer and conservation specialist, the project experienced difficulties. “The destructive overgrazing of the plant cover…and excessive deforestation caused the failure of this initiative,” he notes.

During the same period, 1,000 water points were set up in the desert, and the same number of dykes to divert flood waters from seasonal rivers so that these could be used to fertilise surrounding areas.

The HCDS was itself established in 1981 to regenerate and protect the Algerian steppe, which extends over an area of 32 million hectares some 200 kilometres to the south of Algiers – and helps protect against the advance of the desert.

The commission says that since its creation, 2.6 million hectares of steppe have been restored, while seven million still require attention. “Our efforts on the ground have borne fruit. We have given back hope to the population that lives in this region,” says Brouri.

The steppe is inhabited by more than seven million people, out of a total population of some 33 million. Those living in the vast area depend mainly on livestock for their livelihood, the area also being home to some 18 million head of sheep.

“Today, the desert is very well controlled in Algeria, since the HCDS invested in the land and achieved substantial gains in the fight against desertification,” notes Brouri.

But President Bouteflika has yet to be reassured, saying the various anti-desertification projects have achieved only partial success. Such concerns recently prompted government to set aside 2.5 billion dollars for agencies involved in the fight against desertification, to move ahead with development of the south.