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Articles by Patrick Worms
Hope takes root in Africa: How community-led restoration is driving change
Across Africa, communities are restoring degraded landscapes, creating jobs and strengthening local economies. With new investments and a deepening commitment to grassroots leadership, the second phase of the Regreening Africa and Knowledge for Great Green Wall Action (K4GGWA) programmes is scaling up tested approaches to sustainable land management—offering pathways to more secure livelihoods, climate resilience and social stability.
Actions are multiplying for the Great Green Wall initiative
"Cornucopia of stiff challenges remain" to realise ambitions For those who have been following the Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative, it may seem actors have struggled to realise the breath-taking ambitions agreed by the African Union back in 2007. Depending on the calculation, just four to 10 percent of the planned 100 million hectares of land have been restored in the past 17 years across the 11 GGW countries.
¿La forma más fácil, barata y rápida de conseguir un bosque próspero? Sentarse a tomar una taza de té
La hora del té. Usado bajo Licencia Creative Commons. Flickr/Kate Russell Más información Cuanto más se habla del papel esencial de los árboles en el clima (¡ríos atmosféricos!), en los suelos (¡la red de conexiones subterráneas entre los árboles!) y en la biodiversidad (¡los bosques tropicales!), sin mencionar el secuestro de carbono, más se comprende la importancia del conjunto diverso de especies de árboles de diferentes edades que conforman los bosques.
The best tool to save the world? A nice cup of tea.
Tea time. Used under Creative Commons License. Flickr/Kate Russell Related stories The more one hears about the essential role of trees in the weather (atmospheric rivers!), in soils (the wood wide web!), and in biodiversity (tropical rainforests!), let alone carbon sequestration, the more one understands the importance of forests comprised of mixes of different species of trees of different ages.
Try tree regeneration, not tree planting
With all those well-meaning efforts to plant trees out there, alarm is justifiably being raised that sometimes, those trees will do more harm than good. That’s why it’s helpful to start any tree project with the thought that the objective is to “regenerate with trees” or “restore with trees,” rather than “planting trees” or even “growing trees.” After all, the objective of most such projects is some form of regeneration, if only of the atmosphere (by pulling carbon from it).
Niger formally adopts farmer-managed natural regeneration
The African country is one of the first in the world to decree FMNR as a pathway to restoration of degraded land. In July 2020, the Republic of Niger became one of the first countries globally to adopt a presidential decree regulating and promoting the practice of a revolutionary agricultural technology known as farmer-managed natural regeneration or FMNR.
Carica papaya: a tree that keeps on giving
Farmers in Kenya are benefitting from growing pawpaw thanks to support from Regreening Africa. pawpaw trees intercropped with maize, beans and other fruit trees. Photo: Jared Ongalo By May Muthuri, Stephanie Ojee, Brian Wambua and Patrick Worms For centuries, ‘pawpaw’ (Carica papaya), a rich source of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, has formed part of the staple diet for families across Kenya. It’s one of the first fruits kids get introduced to as they are weaned.
Though forests burn, trees retake farmland globally as agroforestry advances
Agroforestry is an ancient agricultural technique being rediscovered all over the world as limitations of the globe’s highly industrialized agriculture become obvious. On the old and exhausted soils of Africa, trees’ power to nourish life is potentially integral to a reboot of the continent’s agriculture.
Is simplicity always best?
Bonn - “We humans want to see everything as simple, little and ‘square’,” says Chris Martius, principal climate scientist of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), as he shows a picture of a boxfish in his presentation at Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn. But cuteness can hide danger.
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