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There are things we would like to change... |
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Twenty thousand farmer families on the Central Plateau in Burkina Faso have used the amount of stones required for building the Cheops pyramid for the construction of about 40.000km of contour stone walls. These stone walls are necessary for a more efficient use of the rain and to prevent soil erosion in the dry Sahel Zone. The work is, however, by far not completed yet. The farmers must still carry out at least five times as many soil conservation measures within the next 20 years. Only then can the four million people on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso live and work in relative safety without having to destroy nature for poverty reasons or having to leave their home country as environmental refugees. Without the construction of stone walls the fertile part of the soil is washed away by the rain. To prevent this from happening many stones still have to be moved. A family with about 4 ha of farmland needs more than 200 tons of stones. Breaking the stones and building stone walls around the fields is really hard work. If all the family members work together, they can line a max. of 1 ha with stone walls within one year. The problem are the costs for transportation, which amount to approximately 175 EUR per hectare - a lot of money for a Burkinian family that can only sell some surplus millet in really productive years.
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Desertification/Soil degradation: 80 years ago there were still lions and elephants. Now nobody can live here anymore!
Depending on the location the farmers build
Stone walls stop the rain water from running off so that it can infiltrate into the soil
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On this picture soil erosion is prevented
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Food safety in the Sahel Zone is therefore easily and effectively provided again. |
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That is why they need partners. Only with our help and support
can can farmers maintain the soil and vegetation on the Central Plateau and
fight desertification. |
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