The "Great Green Wall", intended to be a belt of specially planted trees across the entire Sahel region, was once conceived as a way to combat climate change in Africa. However, the project has stalled, and locals fear that the Sahara Desert is once again slowly encroaching on new territories.
The idea behind the project, which began ten years ago, was to plant a 5,000-mile line of trees that would span the entire continent and hold back the Sahara Desert. The trees were intended to prevent desert sands from encroaching on agricultural regions. However, as air temperatures have risen and rainfall has decreased, millions of the planted trees have died. Only four per cent of the planned wall's total scale has been achieved.