Yesterday, I had my first trip to the field station after my return from Sweden in March, and it was great! It’s surprising how easily I miss the landscape - the vast horizon, the red soil with the sunny colored sand, disrupted by little dots of green shrubs and bushes - and all set against a full blue sky… Love it, love it, love it! My mom grew up on the Swedish island Smögen and she always missed the sea… I grew up in Niger and I always miss the horizon!

All that driving up to the field station made me think about the whole tree situation and what is being said and Niger & trees in general. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled Trees versus desertification, which talks about the disrupting tree chopping scene that I saw going on just between Kano and Zinder.

In every second village, there was firewood for sale. Thick, rich stems that had been chopped down to give way to a growing demand. Trunks that you know have taken years and years to grow.

One would think that desertification is a disastrous environmental phenomenon that man cannot protect himself against, but except for a relatively small part of the world which according to UN studies consists of naturally hyperarid deserts, desertification is a man-induced process. In the case of Niger, there is actually a natural green belt protecting the agricultural zone from the vast Sahara desert.

Niger1 responded to this post with the following comment:

Wait a minute last year the Ny times had a first page picture of Niger saying that Niger is greener here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/world/africa/11niger.html
Just last week another article came out too saying the same thing. So what is happening?

Well, I’ll get back to you on that question in a post of its own as there is a lot to say on that topic. In the meantime, here are images from two of the many villages we passed through on our way! Will post more from the field station soon…