Yacouba Sawadogo

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Yacouba Sawadogo (* 1941 or 1942 ) is a self- sufficient arable farmer from Burkina Faso . With a method of the traditional agricultural method Zaï , which he further developed, desert areas were replanted in several African countries. In 2018 he and Tony Rinaudo received the Right Livelihood Award , also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize .

Life

Yacouba Sawadogo comes from a poor family from Gourga near Ouahigouya in Burkina Faso. After attending an unsuccessful Koran school in Mali , where he was unable to learn to read and write, he earned his living by selling on the market.

At the end of the 1970s, Yacouba Sawadogo began to hack holes in dry land using the traditional zaï method . In these he filled millet grains , which he, according to his own experiments, coated with a mixture of cattle dung, leaves and ashes. To do this, Sawatogo laid rows of stones to slow down the drainage of rainwater. This enabled the water to penetrate the dry soil better. His method yielded very good millet yields in an area that had been dried out by years of drought. The cattle dung contained tree and bush seeds, from which a forest grew. This is now over 30 hectares and can be seen on satellite images to the east of the hospital.

The Dutch scientist Chris Reij from the World Resources Institute and OXFAM UK became aware of the method and supported Yacouba Sawadogo. He invited interested farmers from the neighboring countries Niger and Mali to learn the methods. Great successes could be achieved especially in Niger.

Yacouba Sawadogo was invited to international conferences to present his work. The greening caused the groundwater level to rise by around five meters. As the fertile land became more attractive, the Yatenga provincial government ordered that part of the forest should be cleared and sold as building land. The land was not legally owned by the illiterate Zavadogo. After protests, he was offered to buy the land for the equivalent of 50,000 euros. However, he could not afford that price. The price was increased to 100,000 euros in 2009.

The clearing and construction of houses was hesitated for a few years, but in 2019 the first buildings will already be in the forest area, an official procedure for the protection of the forest as “municipal heritage” is still ongoing.

Honors

  • Documentary The Man Who Stopped the Desert (2010)
  • Right Livelihood Award (2018)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 13 ° 32 ′ 31 ″  N , 2 ° 23 ′ 1 ″  W.
  2. ↑ Chris Reij. In: wri.org , accessed on May 27, 2020.
  3. ↑ Will Critchley, edited by Olivia Graham: Looking after our land - Part two: Case Studies, Projet Agro-Forestier (PAF ), Oxford, 1991. online at fao.org, accessed May 27, 2020.
  4. ↑ Daniel Kaboré, Chris Reij: The Emergence and Spreading of an Improved Traditional Soil and Water Conservation Practice in Burkina Faso. IFPRI , Washington DC, 2004. online in Google Book Search
  5. ↑ Mark Hertsgaard: Regreening Africa. In The Nation on November 19, 2009. Retrieved May 27, 2020
  6. ^ Andrew Leonard: How to help Yacouba Sawadogo. In: Salon. September 11, 2008, accessed May 27, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b 1080 Films: The Man Who Stopped the Desert - Video
  8. ↑ 1080 Films: What Yacouba did next ... In: youtube.com , July 14, 2012.
  9. ↑ Andrea Jeska, 2015
  10. ↑ Abdel Aziz Nabaloum: Forêt de Gourga dans le Yatenga: l'écocide d'un "patrimoine mondial" (French), in: Sidwaya , July 3, 2019, accessed on May 27, 2020.
  11. ↑ Yacouba Sawadogo: Farmer from Burkina Faso receives Alternative Nobel Prize Time online from September 24, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Sawadogo, Yacouba
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Burkinabe farmer
DATE OF BIRTH 1941 or 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Gourga, Ouahigouya