Old people in Thiengoly say they can remember when there were so many trees that you couldn’t see the sky. Now, miles of reddish-brown sand surround this village in northwestern Senegal, dotted with occasional bushes and trees. Dried animal dung is scattered everywhere, but hardly any dried grass is.
Overgrazing and climate change are the major causes of the Sahara’s advance, said Gilles Boetsch, an anthropologist who directs a team of French scientists working with Senegalese researchers in the region.“The local Peul people are herders, often nomadic. But the pressure of the herds on the land has become too great,” Mr. Boetsch said in an interview. “The vegetation can’t regenerate itself.”
Since 2008, however, Senegal has been fighting back against the encroaching desert. Each year it has planted some two million seedling trees along a 545-kilometer, or 340-mile, ribbon of land that is the country’s segment of a major pan-African regeneration project, the Great Green Wall.First proposed in 2005, the program links Senegal and 10 other Saharan states in an alliance to plant a 15 kilometer-wide, 7,100-kilometer-long green belt to fend off the desert. While many countries have still to start on their sections of the barrier, Senegal has taken the lead, with the creation of a National Agency for the Great Green Wall.
“This semi-arid region is becoming less and less habitable. We want to make it possible for people to continue to live here,” Col. Pap Sarr, the agency’s technical director, said in an interview here. Colonel Sarr has forged working alliances between Senegalese researchers and the French team headed by Mr. Boetsch, in fields as varied as soil microbiology, ecology, medicine and anthropology. “In Senegal we hope to experiment with different ways of doing things that will benefit the other countries as they become more active,” the colonel said. Each year since 2008, from May to June, about 400 people are employed in eight nurseries, choosing and overseeing germination of seeds and tending the seedlings until they are ready for planting. In August, 1,000 people are mobilized to plant out rows of seedlings, about 2 million plants, allowing them a full two months of the rainy season to take root before the long, dry season sets in.
After their first dry season, the saplings look dead, brown twigs sticking out of holes in the ground, but 80 percent survive. Six years on, trees planted in 2008 are up to three meters, or 10 feet, tall. So far, 30,000 hectares, or about 75,000 acres, have been planted, including 4,000 hectares this summer.
There are already discernible impacts on the microclimate, said Jean-Luc Peiry, a physical geography professor at the Université Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, France, who has placed 30 sensors to record temperatures in some planted parcels.“Preliminary results show that clumps of four to eight small trees can have an important impact on temperature,” Professor Peiry said in an interview. “The transpiration of the trees creates a microclimate that moderates daily temperature extremes.” “The trees also have an important role in slowing the soil erosion caused by the wind, reducing the dust, and acting like a large rough doormat, halting the sand-laden winds from the Sahara,” he added. Wildlife is responding to the changes. “Migratory birds are reappearing,” Mr. Boetsch said.
The project uses eight groundwater pumping stations built in 1954, before Senegal achieved its independence from France in 1960. The pumps fill giant basins that provide water for animals, tree nurseries and gardens where fruit and vegetables are grown.
答案：
司恩高利村的老人们常说，他们记得曾经该村周边树木多得遮天蔽日。如今，司恩高利这个塞内加尔西北小村已被绵延数英里的红棕色沙子包围，沙子上零星散布着灌木丛和树丛。干结的动物粪便到处都是，但干枯的草却很难到处可见。
过度放牧和气候变化是导致撒哈拉沙漠扩张的主要原因，人类学家吉勒思·波特舍这样说道，他带领的一队法国科学家正和塞内加尔研究员一道在此开展研究工作。“当地的颇耳族人以放牧为生，且常常是流动放牧。但是畜群对草地带来的压力太大以致于植被无法复生，”波特舍先生在一次采访中说道。
不过，塞内加尔自 2008 年起就一直抗击不断扩张的沙漠的侵袭。每年，该国将约 200 万株树苗沿 545 千米(约 340 英里)长的狭长地带栽种，这块狭长地带是“绿色长城”这一泛非洲植被再生工程在塞内加尔境内的部分。“绿色长城”这一工程在 2005 年被提出，它将塞内加尔和其他 10 个地处撒哈拉的国家联接成同盟来通过植树创建一个 15 千米宽、7100 千米长的绿化带，以此阻挡沙漠的扩张。随着主管其境内的“绿色长城”工程的一个国家级机构的成立，塞内加尔在植树治沙方面已经走在了前列，而许多国家甚至都还没有着手建设它们境内的绿化带屏障。
“这个半干燥地区正变得越来越不适宜居住。我们想让人们还能够继续在此居住，”帕萨上校在一次采访中说道，他是这个新成立的机构的技术主任。萨上校已促成塞内加尔研究人员和波特舍领导的法国科学家团队在土壤微生物学、生态学、药学和人类学方面组成研究联盟。萨上校说：“随着其他国家变得更积极起来，我们希望塞内加尔尝试的不同治沙方式能让这些国家受益”。自 2008 年起，每年 4 月到 6 月，约 400 名工人会受雇于 8 个苗圃室，他们要挑选种子、照看种子的发芽，然后修剪幼苗直到这些幼苗能用于载种。到了 8 月，1000 多人将被调动来栽种一排排树苗，约 200 万株，这就使得这些树苗在漫长而干燥的旱季到来前能有足足两个月的雨季来扎根。
在经历了第一个旱季之后，这些小树苗看上去都枯死了，只剩棕色的枝条从地上的洞中凸出来，但 80% 的树苗都会存活。6 年之后，这些 2008 年栽下的树苗已经长到了 3 米之高(约 10 英寸)。迄今已有 30000 公顷，约 75000 英亩的地带已经栽上了树木，其中 4000 亩是今年夏天栽种的。
“植树对微气候的影响已经显现，”法国克莱蒙费朗市布莱斯•帕斯卡大学物理地理学教授让·吕克·派瑞说道，他在一些已经栽种了树木的地带放置了 30 个传感器来记录温度变化。“初步的结果显示 4 至 8 棵树组成的树丛能对温度产生重要影响，”派瑞教授在一次采访中说道。“树木体表的水分蒸发能创造一个微气候，这个微气候能降低每日温度的上限。”“同时，这些树木在减轻大风造成的土壤流失、减少沙尘以及起到粗糙的地垫作用方面功不可没，从而阻断从撒哈拉刮来的满是沙子的大风”他补充说道。野生动物因这些变化而改变了行为。波特舍先生说：“迁徙的鸟类重现此地。”
该工程所用的 8 个地下水泵站建于 1954 年，即在塞内加尔 1960 年脱离法国统治取得独立之前。这些水泵抽取地下水灌满巨型蓄水盆，而这些蓄水盆为动物、苗圃室和种植有果树的花园供水。
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