By Audrey Reisdorffer | Senior Communications Manager
Dear friend,
The Great Green Wall is Africa’s boldest restoration movement, transforming drylands and degraded forests into thriving, resilient landscapes. Thanks to your support, WeForest is helping communities in Ethiopia and Senegal bring this vision to life, improving livelihoods while regenerating forests and landscapes that millions depend on.
In Ethiopia’s Desa’a Forest, communities are regenerating steep, fragile escarpments. Families are adopting beekeeping as a new source of income, with honey sales paying school fees and daily essentials. Shade and water retention are returning, and there are signs of wildlife recovery too: dik-diks and even a leopard have recently been spotted, proof that habitats are being restored.
At Gewocha Forest, one of the last afromontane forests in the region, communities are working to protect the core forest while practising agroforestry and enrichment planting on surrounding farmland. This reduces the pressure on the remaining natural forest and ensures access to fuel, fodder, and fruit without clearing more trees.
In Wof-Washa, one of Ethiopia’s oldest natural forests, twelve cooperatives now manage 8,700 hectares through participatory forest management. Local people are setting bylaws, monitoring the forest, and planning restoration. This governance model is safeguarding biodiversity, including gelada baboons and the endemic Ankober serin, while protecting vital water sources.
In Senegal’s Ferlo region, where rainfall is scarce and soils are sandy, restoration depends on simple but effective techniques. Thousands of “half-moons”—crescent-shaped basins dug into the soil— now capture precious rainfall, each holding up to 1,000 litres of water. With manure added to improve soil quality, seedlings have a better chance to survive. To date, over 1,000 hectares are under protection, with more than 80,000 seedlings planted and 267,000 trees growing across three pastoral units.
From Ethiopia’s highlands to Senegal’s Sahel, communities are showing that the Great Green Wall can be built not just by growing trees, but by creating opportunities. Your support is making this possible: every hive, every cooperative, and every water-harvesting basin is thanks to you.
With gratitude,
The WeForest Team
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