The date opened out before them, the forest rising on either side like great green walls.

Since 2005, the Great Green Wall concept has developed considerably.

"The great green wall is a stunt, a show to appeal to those ready to give money," El Ali insisted.

The Great Green Wall will face tough conditions.

He said the great green wall would be presented by President Abdoulaye Wade and feature "at the heart of debate".

The Great Green Wall, as it's known, was first proposed in the mid-eighties and finally approved by the African Union in 2007.

Your comment reminded me of this article Novelist - Great Green Wall to stop Sahel desertification:

From a tree planting initiative, the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel has evolved to a development programming tool.

CSFD-The African Great Green Wall project-What advice can scientists provide?

He was still looking at this dwindling figure, which stood as a mere grey blot touched with a white flame against the great green wall of the steep down behind him.

To its credit, China has undertaken the world's largest reforestation project, more than 4.5 million hectares a year - including a 4,000-mile "great green wall" of trees, shrubs and other plantings.

Within a generation or two, Reij believes, agroforestry could spread across the southern Sahel, forming a green zone many times wider than the Great Green Wall.

Eleven countries are associated with the great green wall scheme, which was initially dreamed up by Nigeria's former president Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005, then adopted by Wade.

"The construction of the Great Green Wall across Africa should be the motor for international co-operation, both at the national and at the communal level, with the objective of fighting poverty,"

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The geographical scope of the Great Green Wall is defined as the Saharan strip, north and south borders, including Saharan oases and enclaves, such as Cape Verde.

I stared at the edge of the clearing behind us, where the jungle closed us out with its great green wall of trees, bird calls, animals breathing, all as permanent as a heartbeat we heard in our sleep.

"We're planting local species, like acacias, which adapt well and which produce gum arabic, which provides resources to villagers," said Colonel Matar Cisse, the director of the national agency for the Great Green Wall.

According to AMCEN, the Great Green Wall is a flagship program that contribute to the goal of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or RIO+20, of "a land degradation neutral world".

The Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel concept has been defined in the continuity of discussions by the African Union Commission(AUC) and the CEN-SAD Secretariat.

Contributing to improved local incomes, the Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative (GGWSSI) will be a global answer to the combined effect of natural resources degradation and drought in rural areas.

The series of quakes would begin at sunset, and the ocean would rise like a great green wall... Svetz and Ra Chen and Zeera Southworth spent half the night going through the history section of the Beverly Hills Library.

From the initial idea of a line of trees from east to west through the African desert, the vision of a Great Green Wall has evolved into that of a mosaic of interventions addressing the challenges facing the people in the Sahel and the Sahara.

Together, eleven Sahelo-Saharan states (Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan and Chad) created the Pan African Agency of the Great Green Wall (GGWA):

Moreover, the best practices of different experiences of green belts around cities, particularly in Africa, are currently being analysed in the context of the 'Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel' initiative as part of a feasibility study supported by the European Commission.