slowing desertification

The march of the Sahara has been slowed in Niger by a change in government policy, and the response of farmers to this policy. Apparently with no investment money, the desert is being reclaimed as farmers nurture saplings that they once chopped down for fuel, because the farmers now own the trees on their land, giving them an incentive to treat them as a resource more valuable than their use as woodfuel. They now sell fruits, pods, bark and branches at a level that sustains the growing forest, with the additional benefit that the topsoil is not blown away and other crops survive alongside the trees.

It is also reported that the water table is higher now, but it is not clear whether this is simply a result of better rainfall. In some countries, alien trees are being eradicated partly because they are big consumers of groundwater, but that seems not to be a concern in this case. According to a comment on an article on WorldChanging, these trees in Niger are acacias, which are legumes, fixing nitrogen in the soil and improving it.