47
Dienaba Aka pulls her heavily laden
donkey cart to the side of the road. She
and her extended family have spent the
day cutting grass in a “forage bank”
managed by the national Great Green
Wall agency. For the past eight months,
the 1,700-acre field has been fenced off to
let the grass, along with 250,000 saplings,
grow undisturbed by the cattle, sheep and
goats that roam free in this region. The
field reopened in July, and now herders
pay $1.70 a day to harvest the waist-high
grass for their cattle until the rains bring
new grazing opportunities. For Aka,
the idea of a grass “bank” is a radical
departure from an itinerant childhood
spent following the family herd in search
of forage. Now she can feed her cattle in
the lean season without stripping trees.
Aka, like women from many villages in
the region, has been planting trees for the
GGW project since 2012. She earns $96
during the six-week planting season. It’s
good money, she says, but most women
do it because they have been told it will
bring back the rain, which in turn brings
the grass that feeds their livestock.
There is another advantage to for-
age banking, Aka says, gazing proudly
planet; the earth will survive no matter
how much the climate changes. It’s about
saving humanity. One way to do that is by
helping those who are most vulnerable to
what chaos we have already created.
Just 25 miles south of Mbar Toubab,
near the village of Koyli Alpha, 50-year-old
Rachel
Kyte
SUSTAINABILITY
As climate change has
exploded as an issue on
the international scene,
Rachel Kyte has become
a go-to expert for heads
of state and multinational
CEOs trying to figure out
how to transition away
from fossil fuels. In the
lead-up to the September
2019 U.N. Climate Change
Summit, she has played an
influential role leading the
U.N. Secretary- General’s
push for countries and
companies to make new
commitments to expedite
the energy transition. As the
leader of the World Bank’s
climate program ahead of
negotiations that yielded
the Paris Agreement, Kyte
developed strategies to
make hundreds of billions
of dollars available to
developing countries eager
to address climate change
but lacking the resources.
Kyte, just named dean of
the Fletcher School at Tufts
University, currently leads
a nonprofit, Sustainable
Energy for All, that seeks
to bring energy to under-
developed places while also
helping them move away
from fossil fuels. “We have
to make sure we take care
of everybody,” she says.
ÑJustin Worland
CLIMATE OPTIMISTS
The Indian Ocean coastline will see
more disasters like 2019’s Cyclone
Idai, which killed 1,297 people and
caused $2 billion in damages
1
The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro have
already all but disappeared; glacial
melt is likely to see the continent’s
glaciers disappear in the next decade
2
In the Sahel, droughts have led to
deadly fighting over resources in arid
regions south of the Sahara
3
Estimates suggest rising ocean
temperatures will lead to a 53% drop
in the fisheries of Nigeria, 56% in
Ivory Coast and 60% in Ghana
4
The Horn of Africa is facing the
worst food crisis in the 21st century,
affecting some 12 million people in
Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia
5
Rising sea levels have led to the
flooding of coastal villages in West
African countries, driving inhabitants
to migrate to urban areas or abroad
6
AFRICA
1
2
3
4
5
6
MAP BY JING ZHANG FOR TIME; ILLUSTRATION BY JACQUI OAKLEY FOR TIME
