Tradition to the Rescue
The wetlands of the Inner Niger Delta in Mali is home to over 1 million people due to the natural irrigation from the annual flood waters.
Wherever you may live, a healthy ecosystem is good in every way. In Mali, which is in the center of Western Meritah (colonial Africa), a rich cultural heritage runs through the region, just as the Djoliba (Niger) river does. The Djoliba is such a massive river that it creates an inland delta (flooded plain or marshland) within the Sahara Desert. The villagers of the interior delta are capable of many things: boat building, navigation, fishing, farming, construction of mud-brick structures and even building pyramids. Restoring the ecosystem can be added to the list. These villagers are working to reestablish regional wetland-forests. These forests serve as a refuge for plant and animal species during the dry season. Seven forests have been restored out of twenty that have perished, according to Mory Diallo, a research assistant at the local office of Wetlands International.
This is good news for the local economy because many fisheries have been restored, leading to income for local communities. Under the canopy of these forests, the water is kept from drying up entirely because of the shade that the trees provide. Small bodies of water remain throughout the dry season, which provides spawning ponds for fish. These submerged forests have recovered since being placed under the protection of traditional leaders. According to an article on Allafrica.com, much of the forests in this delta region were lost to drought in the 1970’s and 1980’s. However, beginning in the 1960’s, the increased usage of chemical agricultural inputs and exploitative farming practices of the so-called Green Revolution were implemented wherever colonial governments had influence. Because of its rice producing capacity, this region in Mali was exploited. The result, as we have seen wherever industrial agriculture has been adopted, is an environmental imbalance that forces the ecosystem to change.
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