This project was presented on the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon last December and is already in work. Still, it reminds widely unknown, but deserves attention:

Senegal started now to plant a "Great Green Wall" of trees stretching for nearly 7 000 km, all the way from Dakar to Djibouti, to stop the relentless advance of the Sahara desert.

"Instead of waiting for the desert to come to us, we need to attack it," Fada Diagne, Environment Minister, told Reuters in an interview. Also, he says, in Senegal the desert is advancing at a speed of 50 000 hectares every year.

The idea, first mooted by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, is to plant a 5 km wide band of trees crossing the world's poorest continent from east to west to stop the desert swallowing precious arable land.

More information: www.biopact.com/2007/12/eu-and-africa-to-build-green-wall.html