00:00The Sahara Desert is huge. It occupies 8% of the world's territory. It is larger than the United States or China.
00:09But surprisingly, the Sahara is not the largest desert in the world. It is the third, behind the Antarctic and the Arctic.
00:17But it is without a doubt the hottest. The temperatures there are close to 57 degrees.
00:23This place has some of the most incredible sand dunes you will ever see. They reach 450 meters high.
00:30But the hiccup is that there is a real risk that these dunes continue to spread and end up covering the entire earth.
00:41Curiously, the influence of the Sahara extends well beyond its borders.
00:45Its dust, transported by powerful winds, would make its way to the United Kingdom and across the European continent,
00:52especially in winter. This dust, which settles on the ground when it rains, offers a familiar spectacle to the British,
00:59whose cars are often covered with a red residue.
01:03This link between the Sahara, England and Europe reminds us of the global scope of environmental phenomena.
01:10You may think that this is not so serious, but Europe could turn into a desert, with infertile soils and uninhabited habitats.
01:19The earth is a fundamental element of human existence, just as essential as water and air. Without it, our landscapes would be murky and arid.
01:33The Sahara desert has already crossed the Mediterranean, which is worrying and could change the landscape forever.
01:40A fifth of Spain has already been transformed into a desert.
01:44The next victim will be Italy, also confronted with the problem of desertification.
01:49In fact, almost all European countries are affected by this problem.
01:53According to the expert Maurizio Sciortino, this land, which has not changed for nearly 2,000 years, will essentially become rock.
02:00And the people who live there will disappear.
02:0360% of Moldova's land has disappeared, and the problem is already beyond the Black Sea.
02:09It has reached China and Mongolia, thousands of kilometers from the Sahara.
02:14All this leads to losses of about 4 billion dollars per year.
02:18The threat is so great that even the United Nations has begun to mobilize resources to solve this problem in the shortest possible time.
02:26Italy sends aid to Africa to stop the expansion of the desert.
02:31If this process does not stop in the next ten years, millions of people will be forced to leave their homes.
02:38The Sahara desert extends about 48 kilometers per decade.
02:42Do the math, and you will know how long it will take to cover the whole of Europe.
02:47Since 1920, the Sahara has expanded by about 10%.
02:51But all hope is not lost, because more than 172 countries have come together to put an end to the desertification of the world.
03:00The World Food Program aims to help the re-vegetation of the land that once occupied the Sahara.
03:08When they shared their project with the inhabitants of this great region, they laughed at them by telling them that it was impossible.
03:16But when you have a precise goal in mind, the impossible becomes possible.
03:22If we go back about 5,000 years, we would find there a beautiful forest with trees and lush greenery.
03:30It has been 2,000 years since the climate of Africa changed, and all the vegetation of the Sahara has now disappeared.
03:37This evolution is linked to the rotation of the earth and the mosses that bring water to this arid continent.
03:43But with the help of scientists and a few tricks, we can bring back all this greenery and stop the advance of the desert.
03:51The Senegal River serves as a border between the Sahara desert, Senegal and Mauritania.
03:59When you observe this area from space, you see that the desert extends well to Senegal.
04:05The vegetation along the river banks is practically non-existent.
04:10Forests can serve as barriers, they prevent the winds from carrying the sand and the desert from spreading.
04:16Efforts have been made to create a large green wall, and the way to achieve this is quite impressive.
04:22For more than 40 years, nothing has grown in the area that is currently being restored,
04:26which has led the inhabitants to find other places to live.
04:29And then we realized that the earth could be restored.
04:32People were excited, they committed themselves to it and learned to work the soil and grow food.
04:40At present, more than 300 square kilometers have been restored and transformed into new green spaces.
04:46The Sahel region is the starting point for desertification.
04:50And it is crucial to first establish a green wall in this area.
04:54The realization of this wall has nothing to do with magic.
04:57A few simple measures are enough.
04:59The soil is literally cooked by the sun and is as hard as a block of concrete.
05:04If you have already poured water on concrete, you know that it flows.
05:08They do not stay in the same place.
05:10So we had to create structures in half-moons capable of retaining water so that plants can grow.
05:18When you discover the operation of these half-moons, you may say to yourself,
05:22but how could we not think about it earlier?
05:24In fact, this technique is old and has already been implemented in the Sahel.
05:29But over time, people have forgotten it.
05:31When the rain falls, the water is collected in these half-moons placed a little lower than the ground, under the curves of the levels.
05:38There is also a kind of slope at the end of the shape.
05:42It prevents the water from overflowing.
05:44And in the middle, there are plants.
05:46They thrive because they have all the water they need.
05:50It is essential to cultivate local plants that are used to the difficult conditions of the region, such as sorghum and millet.
05:58These plants have survived for thousands of years and produce large amounts of biomass,
06:03which means that the earth can be rehabilitated more quickly and that people will have food earlier.
06:11The water that penetrates the half-moons does not get lost.
06:14It penetrates the ground and feeds the phreatic taps.
06:18Thus, the water in the ground will never run out and future generations will have drinking water.
06:24But this brilliant technique is not limited to the half-moons.
06:28People also draw lines to plant various vegetables, such as tomatoes.
06:33Then, there are places reserved for trees, lemon trees and oranges, for example.
06:38After a long and hot day, nothing is better than a good fresh lemonade.
06:43Trees will also protect the soil, and with a little luck, there will one day be a new forest in the Sahara desert.
06:50The method is to follow the dynamics typical of the forest.
06:53We start with small plants, then we gradually move on to larger plants, more useful than the small ones.
07:00The goal is to plant more than 10,000 trees.
07:04At the moment, many people leave the Sahara after the rainy season.
07:08They go to the cities or simply leave Africa.
07:12At this time of year, the villages are deserted, there are only animals.
07:16Most people have left.
07:18Can we blame them?
07:20No one can live in the sand where nothing grows.
07:23Fortunately, thanks to all these old techniques found,
07:27many are those who, slowly but surely, return to their land to develop agriculture.
07:33The advantage is that there is no rigorous winter and the plants grow 12 months a year.
07:39People can therefore have food all year round.
07:43People are also more sociable now that the villages are repopulating.
07:47If this project works, Africa will be saved and the world will not turn into a gigantic desert.
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