El Maalba is a small rural town lost in the vast steppes of Djelfa, at 1170 meters above sea level. It is here that President Tebboune came to plant a tree on October 29, thus symbolically relaunching the Green Dam project.
Described as an ecological and agro-economic megaproject, the Green Dam was launched in June 1970, under the reign of President Houari Boumediene who called on army soldiers to reforest kilometers of steppe and desert. The idea was to reforest a corridor 20 kilometers wide and 1,500 kilometers long to serve as an obstacle to the advance of the desert. For years, millions of trees were planted, but given the scale and difficulty of the task, the project was gradually abandoned and relegated to oblivion.
“At that time, the concept of global change or global warming did not yet exist in the glossary of specialist technicians and the media. A pioneer in the fight against desertification, Algeria has, in a way, anticipated the situation by launching this project,” says Amar Naït Messaoud, forestry expert and project manager of the Green Dam in the Bouira region.
“The Algerian initiative also inspired the idea of the Great African Green Wall, initiated a few years ago in the Sahel zone over 7,800 kilometers, from Djibouti to Dakar,” he said again, referring to this initiative of the African Union to fight against the effects of global warming and desertification, the objective of which was to transform the lives of millions of people by creating a mosaic of green and productive ecosystems across eleven countries ranging from Senegal to Djibouti.
Creeping desertification
By resurrecting this “project of the century” last June, the Algerian authorities launched a national plan for the rehabilitation, extension, and development of the Dam, placed under the responsibility of the General Directorate of Forests, and implemented established a Scientific and Technical Committee responsible for steering the fight against desertification. “On the initial route, the satellite images show successful portions and others completely stripped,” analyzed Saliha Fortas, the former director of the fight against desertification at the level of the DGF and the Green Dam at the microphone of the Algerian national television.
For Amar Naït Messaoud, behind this rampant desertification which concerns scientists and politicians alike, there is the slow and inevitable process of degradation of the steppe due to factors linked to human activity such as extensive pastoralism and poor agricultural practices (steppe cereal farming) significant sources of erosion.
“These phenomena, combined with the drop in rainfall, result in the reduction of plant cover, the alteration of soil fertility, and their erosion by rain and wind. This is desertification,” explains the forestry expert, according to whom this process had already been at work for several decades, mainly between the Saharan Atlas and the last foothills of the Tell Atlas. For Algeria, the new challenge to be taken up is to avoid at all costs that desertification extends to the Tell Atlas and coastal areas.
It is therefore this steppe and pastoral corridor which runs from Naama to Tebessa over nearly 1,500 kilometers, or a total area of more than three million hectares, which was chosen to establish the Green Dam. However, on these vast territories live more than 7 million inhabitants and no less than 25 million sheep who will have to be integrated into this major project which is as ecological as it is economical. The idea is therefore to create concessions focused on arboriculture, beekeeping, tourism, and crafts.
Three types of plantations
Scientists have recommended the planting of three categories of plants: forestry, pastoral, and fruit. Forest species will be used for reforestation and therefore for fixing the banks of watercourses and the slopes of mountains. Pastoral species will supplement the livestock, mainly sheep, with fodder; as for the fruit species, chosen for their hardiness, such as the cactus, the pistachio tree, the olive tree, the almond tree, or even the carob tree, they will provide precious fruits while resisting, it is hoped, the steppe climate and the drought which is hitting the Algerian territory.
In the immediate future, the first phase of the relaunch of this century project aims to increase its surface area from 3.7 to 4.7 million hectares in the steppe zones, across 13 wilayas, 183 communes, and 1,200 localities. An area of one million hectares will therefore be reforested.
In its new approach, the realization of the Green Dam project is ensured by forest conservation, the agricultural services directorates of the 13 wilayas concerned as well as the High Commission for Steppe Development (HCDS). A first tranche of 10 billion dinars (around 70 million euros) was released for the action plan 2030.
“We are going to move from a forestry project to a local development program. Before, we mainly planted Aleppo pine. Today, we plant species that are more resistant to heat and drought and that have high added economic value, such as the olive tree, the carob tree, and the pistachio tree, whose fruits feed both people and animals. And, in addition, these are the species more adapted to climate change,” assures a manager from the Djelfa forest department, contacted by telephone.
Improved living conditions
“With the cumulative drought of the last four years, we are also experiencing the constraint of transporting water to the planting sites, both for the first watering, during planting, and for watering of maintenance during the summer period,” remarks Amar Naït Messaoud, highlighting one of the challenges that a company such as the Green Barrage will constantly face.
For this expert who has spent his entire career protecting forest heritage against men, sheep, and the encroachment of the desert, State investments intended to combat desertification have the merit of contributing to the improvement of living conditions of local populations through the creation of jobs, income, and services. “Associations and groups are closely interested in the potential of such a project in terms of ecotourism, rural tourism, and camping,” he notes, before adding that he would like to see the Green Dam stimulate “the creation of micro-enterprises and startups intended to exploit and process medicinal and aromatic plants, to transform and promote local products such as wool, fruits, esparto or esparto”.
“This project spanning two centuries is carried out by several generations. It began with the efforts of its first initiators and the soldiers of the National People’s Army and it continues today with scientists at a time when climate change poses new challenges for us,” concludes, with a certain sense of the formula, the project manager.
