LGIERS, Dec 29 (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.
EDIT
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36019
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
