South Sahara Wall
Purpose / Function
The South Sahara Wall is a massive landmark stretching across the entire continent, from one coast to another. The wall is a man-made structure, created out of tens of thousands of trees, shrubs, and plant life. Mainly, it is made from long planted rows of olive, cypress, and mastic trees on the northern side, blending into mainly acacia and date palms on the southern side. The wall was created to prevent the spread of the Sahara Desert, preventing the desertification of land further south and help to retain moisture as well as act as a physical barrier to drifting sands. It's not quite known who first set out to build the wall and may have been a collaborative project between many communities, being added onto by several nations over centuries.
Architecture
The wall is massive, measuring roughly 4,500 miles long and between 800 and 1,000 miles wide, starting in Western Sahara and seeps across the continent to northern Somalia. It is constructed almost entirely out of trees planted systematically to keep the desert at bay.
History
The wall first became well known during the The War of Black Ash as desertification worsened and drove local extinctions as well as famine in many regions south of the Sahara. Trees, mainly acacia and dates, were planted from Tahoua to Gumel to Maiduguri, mainly due to the failures of other crops and lack of feed for livestock. Communities that maintained the trees often saw better crop yields, and it is thought that other communities later followed suit. More than likely, the wall was not started out as an intentional project, only morphing into its form after several centuries. Many regions use the wall as a landmark of national borders.
Even prior to the wall becoming an international project, there was massive controversy surrounding it. Many ecologists criticized the wall as it posed risk to the natural ecosystems where it was built, and in many cases, actively destroyed them through altering the environment. Biologists also raised concerns about the potential to cause more extinctions than it prevented, by changing the available food sources and focusing more on providing food to people, rather than the environment. In contrast, many proponents of the project cited that the wall could help restore the environments of Africa's Big Five (The lion, elephant, rhino, leopard, and buffalo) to their historic ranges in the Human Era by preventing the desertification of their former ranges. There was also major controversy surrounding nations the wall would pass through and prevent land travel through without their cooperation, as many nations that did not want to participate in the project were threatened by their neighbors that if they did not join the project, the wall would be constructed anyway beyond their borders, and with no gaps to allow for roads or gates.
South Sudan and Ethiopia in particular were known to have massive conflicts in rural communities opposing the project due to lack of consideration given to small towns and communities that were in the way of the wall. It is claimed that in 7,231, guerilla groups not associated with the actual wall project began to plant trees through many communities and towns, against regulations from the official project and prior to property negotiations and land buy outs being processed. This prompted many communities to retaliate, uprooting saplings, burning delivery trucks, and attacking members of the project for ruining their land and properties. Many in South Sudan in particular claimed that the wall was another attempt at colonizing and destabilizing the nation. Details have mainly been lost to time, and the wall continued to be built anyway, eventually being considered 'finished' in 12,738.
To this day, the wall is maintained and continuously has damaged areas replanted, though it is mostly self sustaining in its modern form as the many millions of trees typically fill in the gaps themselves through their own and reproduction. Most maintenance is focused on keeping certain areas clear for roads, animal gateways, and foot and vehicle traffic.
Tourism
The South Sahara wall has become a symbol of the continent and is recognized world wide as a wonder of the world. The South Sahara Wall is also one of, if not the, largest man-made structure in the world, though this title is at times hotly debated due to large amounts of natural growth that filled in many areas along its length without the intervention of people. The structure also has massive fame as a project started by Humans prior to their extinction, and is one of the few still surviving structures built by them.
Many national parks, game reserves, and animal sanctuary zones exist alongside the South Sahara Wall, creating large tourism industries for foreigners wishing to observe and hunt large African game. Thousands of tourists flock to areas around the wall for this purpose, and many more come to see the wall itself. The wall's reputation as being so large it can be seen from space also has given it quite a reputation for being massive and visually impressive, though a lot of tourists are often disappointed upon arrival to find it is "just trees", as per many reviews.
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