We’re Turning dry land into a green oasis

Tanzania’s soil faces a huge problem, longer drought, higher temperatures and unpredictable rains have all led to large areas of land becoming dry and damaged, it can no longer support hardly any life, with plants and grasses disappearing the land is becoming barren, putting the livelihoods of the local people and its unique wildlife at risk. Thankfully there is a way all this can be turned around by restoring the degraded dirt by using a simple technique, proven to have fast results.

The Project

Tanzania’s increasing droughts have left the soil dry and damaged. What’s even worse is that rain events are heavy and instead of replenishing the land, all the valuable top soil is washed away and leaves the land eroded and barren. Local communities, live in remote rural locations and live of subsistence farming and herding, they depend on healthy land.

The solution: To restore the land and biodiversity to bring life back into the soil, by using a technique that helps soil to retain water, instead of washing and eroding away. This technique is an ancient method from the African Sahel, a technique that’s been previously forgotten and brought back. We are working with local partners in Africa who have been training farmers to revive this special technique reviving degraded soil and bringing it back to life just after one rainy season, as more are installed, it has the power to restore entire ecosystems.

The ancient technique is known as half moons, farmers dig half- moon shaped pits that capture rainwater and slow it down so it can be soaked back into the earth again. The ingenious shape not only helps to harvest water but also captures seeds, and creates a microclimate of humidity, which is relatively cooler, helping seed germination. Half-moons can be used to plant grasses and trees, they can also be used to plant crops. What’s great is they can be used on just a small area of land or across large area, this means it can restore entire landscapes at large scale & fast! This means that the more of you who wish to support this project, the more half-moons can be installed. So far we have raised enough for 100 half-moons to be installed in Tanzania but we have an opportunity to extend this into the thousands, with your help!