Afforestation with the acacia gum tree and violent conflict mitigation in the Sahel region

Abstract

The Sahel is the long strip from Ethiopia to Senegal, just below the Sahara Desert. The region has encountered a panoply of humanitarian crises of hunger, poverty, internal displacement, and cross-border migration. Climate change aggravates the previously mentioned underlying problems of violent conflicts by 1) compounding the land degradation, soil infertility, and erosion, all of which increase food insecurity and high food price; 2) increasing resources scarcity in nature dependent region, which increase competition over depleting resources; 3) increasing water scarcity, which forces migration and complicates the cohabitation between migrants and autochthons. The objective is to explore the plausibility of correlating economic growth with ecological enhancement and social inclusion to reach sustainable peace. The literature review reveals how the Gum Arabic Tree (GAT) (or acacia gum tree) has been beneficial to the Sahel ecologically, economically, and socially. Henceforth, this investigation tries to answer the following question: To what extent does the efforts of afforestation with the GAT impact the levels of violent conflicts in the Sahel? This paper lays out the assumptions about the correlation between Gum Arabic (GA)and violent conflicts mitigation through the environment security, food security, water security, social security, and livelihood security.

Keywords: Sahel, gum arabic, afforestation, climate security, conflict

ID: 3487277