Page9 RAIN Dec. 821]an. 83 In Sudan trees around his Grandfather's fields to protect them from the wind-blown sand; the land will then become usable again. Muttering about his strange dream, Ali awakes and finds mesquite pods dropped by the tree. He goes off, whistling optimistically, to plant them." The actors put tremendous life into the voices so the audience was laughing at the goat's antics, booing at Abbas, and silent for the tree's poem; a perfect crowd. Before they dispersed, the forest ranger announced that there was to be a discussion, for anyone interested, at the local club. We met there with a small group of about 25 farmers. The main point that came out of the discussion was that although they had felt life becoming harder with sand covering fertile land, lowering water tables, etc., none of the farmers present had before made the connection between this condition and lack of trees. One man described himself as being terrified at the increasing poverty he was facing. The farmers, on hearing for the first time of the Forest Department's work in planting shelter belts, asked for a shelter belt for their village. The forest ranger explained that the Forest Department does not have the manpower to cover every village in the desert but if the village could provide the labor then they would provide seeds and practical advice and supervision. An arrangement was made for this to happen. We left Shagalwa feeling convinced that story telling, drama and particularly puppets are an ideal means of communicating ideas to people of low literacy level. By presenting a play involving local archetypes, which the villagers readily identified with, we were able to discover very quickly the level of awareness they had of their own environmental problem and its causes. We were also able to reach the women and children who would not have attended a more formal educational exercise. The discussion highlighted how little these people knew of the Forest Department even though the village is very near Shendi and extensive shelter belts have been planted within 25 km. of Shagalwa. The farmers seem unaware of the significance of the work being done. This points to a need for extension work of this sort to communicate to people in their own villages.0 0 TI,e abaue article was excerpted from Green Deserts Members Magazine, Autumn 1981. Desertification is a major problem in Northern Ghana where 1spent time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The Johnny Appleseed approach doesn't go UlJer too well in an area where a grawing population has to cut dawn more and more trees every year in order to have fuel for cooking. There's also the cultural beliefthat trees represent the "bush," a place of disorder and danger; therefore, they must be cleared uway so that people will feel safer. It has been estimated that the desert is creeping south into the tropical forests of central Ghana at a rate of 3 miles per year. The challenge we and other village development facilitators faced was to be culturally sensitive when talking to folies about planting trees. For example, we helped them to make the connection that planting trees helped to protect the drinking water dams from wind and soil erosion . Further, if their villilge can boast of aconstant supply afwater through the dry season, it will be easier for their young men to convince their wives-to-be to come and live with them. Without that guarantee, the village literally withers away. - Ann Borquist From China . .. This past spring millions ofChinese citizens began planting trees in a lIatiollal afforestation drive. Every able-bodied citizen over the age of e11!7.>el1 is expected to plant three to{ive trees each year in amassive effort to Ilalt tltefurther devastation of China's limited forests . Considering tllat tile millions of Chinese census takers just counted a billion people ill China, that's a lot of trees.
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