Green belt that’s keeping a city cool

Huge swathes of vegetation surround the urban sprawl of Ouagadougou as an unusual project looks to combat the effects of the climate crisis

Èlia Borràs

As far as the eye can see is a hotchpotch of trees, vegetable plots and water tanks. Up close it may look like a gigantic allotment, but this unusual project actually stretches for 2,000 hectares, a green belt that now completely rings the city of Ouagadougou. The green belt began life back in the 1970s, with the aim of building a protective wall against the encroaching desert that lies beyond the greenery, just a few steps away. In Burkina Faso, one-third of the territory – about 9 million hectares of productive land – is degraded, with an estimated average degradation rate of 360,000 hectares per year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “Burkina Faso is not a climatically favoured country, but the drought of the 1980s exacerbated the…

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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 14 February 2025

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