In 2007,the African Union announced an ambitious project-to plant the Great Green Wall(GGW),a band of trees that would stretch the length of the Sahel.
The GGW is an ecological restoration project designed by African people for African people. Heavy rains, droughts, wildfires and landslides have all become common throughout the world. But nowhere is quite like the Sahel. In this huge African region, climate change has materialized in a dramatic manner. In some cases, the severe conditions have left people with no option other than to migrate elsewhere to survive. It was with all of this in mind that the extraordinary, but heavily debated project was first put forward.
Fourteen years have passed since the initiative formally kicked off. The stated goal was to create a 15-kilometre-wide, 8,000-kilometre-long green belt of trees and other plants that, by 2030, would span（跨 越）the entire width of the Sahel, from Senegal to Djibouti．Overall, 100 million hectares（公顷）of land would be restored by 2030．Once completed, it was announced, the wall could end up capturing（俘获）250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, while its creation and upkeep could create ten million jobs in rural areas.
Looking at the project as a whole, there's still a long way to go. According to a status report by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, about four million hectares of degraded land have been restored. This means that progress towards the 100 million hectares target stands at just four per cent.
"When we started restoring the soil, we realized the area at risk was much wider than we initially thought, "explains Elvis Paul Tankmate African Union's GGW coordinator. "We had few funds to push the initiative as much as we wanted to. There was skepticism among investors, who didn't understand the project, but also among the African states themselves, which needed time to figure out if the GGW was a priority. "