Africa Expands Failing Tree Planting Project
- Great Green Wall has only achieved about 20% of its target
- Initiative is expanding to southern Africa under new strategy
Kibira National Park in Burundi.
Photographer: Celine Clery/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The African Union is expanding a program that aims to plant millions of trees on the continent, despite failing to make significant progress in the decade and a half since it began.
Launched in 2007, the Great Green Wall Initiative was meant to restore more than 100 million hectares (1 million square kilometers) of degraded land and sequester 250 million tons of carbon in 20 countries, but it has had little success.