
Farmers in Niger are nurturing gao trees to drive environmental change in Africa - bochoh
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/16/regreening-niger-how-magical-gaos-transformed-land
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myth_drannon
Mandatory mention of Kenyan Wangari Maathai
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangari_Maathai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangari_Maathai)
She started a grassroots movement of planting millions of trees in Kenya. She
received Nobel prize in 2004 for her environmental work in Africa.

~~~
skj
Sounds like a treeroots movement, to me.

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vezycash
On topic: Researching Gao trees, I learned about Fertilizer Trees.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer_tree](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer_tree)

Question: Does nitrogen fixing remove the need for adding other soil macro
nutrients?

~~~
gbrown
That depends on what you're doing and what kind of yield you're expecting.
It's not going to completely replace the huge quantities of fertilizer we
apply to conventional fields, but it helps. That's part of the reason we do
crop rotation - beans/legumes fix nitrogen as well.

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entwife
The same principle, using trees to increase soil moisture and water table,
applies in California. Redwoods absorb moisture from fog, while the
replacement grassland (or Eucalyptus) do not.

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wishinghand
This reminds me of a startup that does reforestation that I first saw on
Hacker News a few years ago: [https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-
forest-really-real...](https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-forest-
really-really-fast-d27df202ba09)

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vram22
I've read that the drumstick tree [1] is a sort of wonder tree [2] too. It is
grown a lot in South India, and the pods as well as the leaves are used as
food. The pods are commonly added to sambar, a dish made from dal, vegetables
and spices.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera)

[2] By "wonder tree" I mean one with many good uses.

The neem tree [3] is another.

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azadirachta_indica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azadirachta_indica)

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lbriner
I always wonder why we spend 100s of millions on various "aid" programs that
miss the most basic ways to improve a struggling country at the
agriculture/arboriculture level.

Also, they need a large mix of trees to avoid the vulnerability of single-
species diseases, although this gao tree sounds amazing!

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joering2
Nobody is missing basic ways. These "poor" countries only problem is large
deep corruption. I mean look at the world map - Africa as a continent is twice
the size of USA. Enough of it is in a climate perfect to grow vegetables,
fruits, and so on. But so what? You send a $100 in aid to Africa, most likely
only a dollar would be handed to some poor champ, rest goes thru politicians
and government blood hands :(

That's it. Fix enormous corruption and these countries will be in the top 10
prospering in a decade or two.

~~~
andromedavision
> These "poor" countries only problem is large deep corruption.

I'm curious, why do you think there's so much corruption in these countries
compared to others globally? Just keen to understand what your take on this
is.

~~~
vezycash
Centralized control of resources creates a single point of failure and makes
corruption more attractive than if regions / states only paid taxes to the
federal government.

Africa is resource rich. If left alone, African countries might be as
influential as the Saudis. Gold, colbat, petrol, diamond and other resources
would be far more expensive to buy. Thus, a divided, corrupt Africa is in the
best interest of developed countries.

It's said that Kwame Nkrumah, a man who helped hasten the independence of a
few African countries including Nigeria was ousted from Ghana through external
help (CIA?). Because he was working towards an industrialized, self reliant
and United Africa.

I also read here on HN of a Swiss banker whose job it was to offer attractive
loans to African leaders for projects he knew would never be repaid. And
collect payments in intentionally undervalued natural deposits and/or
concessions for their multi national companies. He would in the same deal help
setup untraceable swizz accounts for these leaders. And teach them various
means of looting their countries dry. And threaten the leader who doesn't play
ball with immediate repayment of compounded loans.

Lastly, like the war on drugs, I believe that Africa's war in corruption is
corrupting the continent far more than all other factors combined. Here's why:

New leaders spend their first two years fighting corruption, trying to recover
loots because the treasury's empty. Thus houses will be seized, companies
repossessed, accounts frozen...

Thus the current commander in thief and his crew would invest in foreign real
estate, companies, offshore accounts... Thus impoverishing the country
further.

Obviously, the solution is that they shouldn't steal. But that's not an
option. Because leaders who don't steal are mocked by the populace - true
story. Money equals power. Thus, honest but powerless ex-leaders are easily
framed / scapegoated by their successors.

To protect their interests, the truly corrupt never leave power. 40 years in
office is normal. And their children gain official posts as soon as they are
born - no joke.

That's my two cents.

100 years from now, hopefully, transparency will get better.

~~~
pm90
This is exactly it. But to add my 2c: one thing really missing from these
countries that we take for granted is a sense of community outside the
immediate family. i.e. the spirit of nationalism is missing, which means that
members work and and responsible only for their immediate families.

Which is for good reason: most folks don't interact with the State, they only
really get help from family and occasionally friends.

So when in power who do you think they will tend to favor? When the family
calls in a favor, you give. Or you do favors for your family and call in a
favor later when you really need it.

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downrightmike
Mesquite trees also do this.

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rini17
This reliance upon, or even worship, of one species is a disaster waiting to
happen. Permaculture would solve this, it strives to create multitude of
relationships between many animal and plant species, and unorthodox
accomodation to local circumstances /ecosystem. Then whole agriculture would
not depend one single type of tree and is more resilient.

But the unorthodox part is probably where it breaks down, it's much easier for
humans to follow "recognized" methods than observe and adapt.

~~~
gervase
My impression from reading the article was that this wasn't a choice of a gao
tree monoculture over better methods, but actually a choice between this
monoculture and _widespread slash-and-burn_ [0]. See also, [1].

It may not be the best from an ecological standpoint, but it's certainly
better than the alternative, and as you said, has the advantage of being well-
accepted among the farmers in the area.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-
burn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy)

