It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles
The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.
The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.
These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.
The half-circles are called zaï! They’re a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.
He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.
Immensely cool dude. He’s been a personal hero since I learned about him.
My mom just told me when was my age she got pregnant while she had two different fwb situations going on and didn’t know who the dad was so she went to the guys separately and said “I’ll pay for half the abortion if you pay half” and collected half the money from each guy . Her mind
I forgot that Americans spell it “mommy” and that therefore “strong as fuck ice mummy” was unabiguously about some sort of undead ice lich, and not ambiguously also about a sort of buff frosty milf archetype like I had been imagining for most of the past couple of years
all i want for 2026 is that gigantic rancid AI bubble to finally burst in such a catastrophic way that the consequences will be so good and i’ll never have to see another AI generated image ever again
