Togo - West Africa - page 945

The Sahara may be the world's largest desert, but it is also the youngest. Thousands of
years ago the Sahara was a fertile land, alternating between savannah grasslands, forests
and lakes watered by relatively frequent rainfall. It was home to abundant wildlife - ele-
phants, giraffes, hippos, lions and other African mega-fauna - as depicted in the rock art
found across the Sahara, especially in Niger's Aïr Mountains and Mali's Adrar des
Ifôghas. The change began around 7000 years ago, when rains became less frequent and
the land more arid. It was a gradual process that took 4000 years. As the Sahara became a
desert, its people and wildlife retreated south. By 400 BC, the Sahara was the desert we
know today, albeit on a smaller scale.
African Silences, by Peter Matthiessen, is a classic on African wildlife; the passages on Senegal, The Gam-
bia and Côte d'Ivoire are so beautifully written that you'll return to them again and again.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, sand covers just 20% of the Sahara's surface and
just one-ninth of the Sahara rises as sand dunes. More typical of the Sahara are the vast
gravel plains and plateaus such as the Tanezrouft of northwestern Mali. The Sahara's other
signature landform is the desert massif, barren mountain ranges of sandstone, basalt and
granite such as the Aïr Mountains (Niger) and Adrar des Ifôrhas (Mali).
By one estimate, the Sahara is home to 1400 plant species, 50 species of mammal and
18 species of bird.
SOS Sahel International ( www.sossahel.org ) is an NGO dedicated to the Sahel environment. It can be a
good source of information on grassroots projects in the region.
The Sahel
The Sahel - a horizontal band stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Nile - is the trans-
ition zone between the forested lands of the south and the Sahara to the north. The Sahel
is one of the direst stretches of inhabited geography on earth, beset by drought, erosion,
creeping desertification , periodic locust invasions and increasingly infertile land.
THE NIGER RIVER
Africa's third-longest river (4100km), the Niger owes its name to the Tuareg phrase gher-n -gheren, which means
'river among rivers', and its curious course has fascinated travellers for centuries.
The Niger begins its journey just over 200km from the Atlantic, at a spring in the Fouta Djalon highlands, on
the Guinea-Sierra Leone border. Gathering strength and volume from countless mountain streams, the Niger