Forests for People

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The Sahara Forest Project –

enabling restorative growth

Joakim Hauge, CEO, Sahara Forest Project

n 2050 about 9.3 billion people will be sharing the same

planet.

Already today the world is facing intertwined chal-

lenges associated with the processes leading to climate

change, desertification and shrinking forests, and of food, water

and energy security. None of these challenges are without solu-

tions, but it is becoming increasingly clear that we should not

be developing responses to one challenge that are detrimental to

another. When the greatest challenges of our time are so closely

interlinked, the same must be true for the solutions. To borrow

the words of Albert Einstein: “We can’t solve problems by using

the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

There are indications that the rate of deforestation has been somewhat

reduced in recent years.

However, despite regional differences the overall

rate still remains alarmingly high. While the world’s forests are shrink-

ing, the world’s deserts continue to grow. This global trend

causes serious negative impacts on future food, water and

energy security, as well as contributing to climate change.

Today, the livelihoods of more than one billion

people in some 100 countries are threatened by deser-

tification. It is estimated that desertification and land

degradation represent an income loss of US$42 billion

per year. Further, the barren lands lost annually could

have provided 20 million tons of grain.

Even though

desertification is most often directly triggered by local-

ized drought, human activities are almost always a key

underlying cause. It is therefore of major importance

to introduce sustainable cultivation and irrigation

practices, and to implement programmes to prevent

over-grazing and unsustainable outtake of biomass.

An artistic impression of what a Sahara Forest Project Test and Demonstration Centre might look like

Image: The Sahara Forest Project