Rjim Maatoug is populated by 4,900 inhabitants today. This small town was created in the 1980s around the cultivation of dates, a very sweet fruit that is also very popular in the Middle Eastern countries. It works, since in 2017, 15,000 tonnes of dates were harvested in the locality. This represents 45 million Tunisian dinars (more than 13 million euros). Since then, the city has found itself at the centre of one of the greatest climatic phenomena of the century, the advance of the Sahara Desert. Sandstorms are very frequent, sometimes blocking roads.
Today, sand dunes surround the city. To prevent them from engulfing the municipality with its 2,500 hectares of oasis, action was needed and Dream in Tunisia, the association created by Sarah Magida, a Tunisian businesswoman, has decided to dream big: by creating a vegetation belt around the city. The dream is coming true, as the association, supported by local populations, has started this vegetation regeneration project.
Supporting local populations
The objective is to plant 1,800 acacias, a very resistant tree adapted to arid areas. The forest will extend along a 130 km long strip, surrounding the localities of Matrouha and Faouar. Dream in Tunisia will then provide water tanks and drip irrigation systems to help young acacias survive in this hostile environment. This project can only succeed with the support of local communities. “From November (2019), if the support of the populations is confirmed, we will plant 50 km of acacia fences along the road from Rjim to Matrouha and 76 km from Rjim to Faoua,” the city delegate promised.
Other initiatives such as Dream in Tunisia have been launched in recent years in the Sahel-Saharan strip. The objective is still to counter this vast desert, which is advancing slowly but surely… Thus, 11 African countries have decided to launch the “Great Green Wall” project. The idea is to build a large vegetation barrier that should extend from Senegal to Djibouti. In August 2018, the Irish government decided to support the project with €1.2 million in funding.
Jean Marie Takouleu