The New Scientist reveals Africa's deserts are in "spectacular" retreat:
The southern Saharan desert is in retreat, making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa.Ever wonder how much Ecoweenie angst is due to the fact that the weather is changeable? In the Stone Age, if there were floods or drought or lots of snow, it was Og, the weather God, who was angry. Now it is the Americans who are causing it. What a snoozer.
Burkina Faso, one of the West African countries devastated by drought and advancing deserts 20 years ago, is growing so much greener than families who fled to wetter coastal regions are starting to go home.
New research confirming this remarkable environmental turnaround is to be presented to Burkina Faso's ministers and international aid agencies in November. And it is not just Burkina Faso.
New Scientist has learned that a separate analysis of satellite images completed this summer reveals that dunes are retreating right across the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Vegetation is ousting sand across a swathe of land stretching from Mauritania on the shores of the Atlantic to Eritrea 6000 kilometres away on the Red Sea coast.
Nor is it just a short-term trend. Analysts say the gradual greening has been happening since the mid-1980s, though has gone largely unnoticed. Only now is the evidence being pieced together.
