I thought some might like to know about this. Quinta "Other approaches are being used to halt soil erosion and desert encroachment on cropland. Algeria, trying to halt the northward advance of the Sahara Desert, announced in December 2000 that it was concentrating its orchards and vineyards in the southern part of the country, hoping that these perennial plantings will halt the desertification of its cropland. In July 2005, the Moroccan government, responding to severe drought, announced that it was allocating $778 million to cancel farmers' debts and to convert cereal-planted areas into less vulnerable olive and fruit orchards.
Sub-Saharan Africa faces a similar situation, with the desert moving southward all across the Sahel, from Senegal on the west coast to Djibouti on the east coast. Countries are concerned about the growing displacement of people as grasslands and croplands turn to desert. As a result, the African Union has launched the Green Wall Sahara Initiative. This plan, originally proposed by Olusegun Obasanjo when he was President of Nigeria, calls for the planting of 300 million trees on 3 million hectares of land, in a long band stretching across Africa. Senegal, which is currently losing 50,000 hectares of productive land each year, would anchor the green wall on the western end. Senegal's Environment Minister Modou Fada Diagne says, "Instead of waiting for the desert to come to us, we need to attack it." China is likewise planting a belt of trees to protect land from the expanding Gobi Desert. This green wall, a modern version of the Great Wall, is projected to reach some 4,480 kilometers (2,800 miles) in length, stretching from outer Beijing through Inner Mongolia. In addition to its Great Green Wall, China is paying farmers in the threatened provinces to plant their cropland in trees. The goal is to plant trees on 10 million hectares of grainland, easily one tenth of China's current grainland area."
