Partner organization Green-Up Gambia recently marked the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on 23 August by launching the inspirational Atlantic Slave Memorial project.
This five-year project, starting in The Gambia, aims to plant 1 million trees in The Gambia, scaling to 12.5 million along the Northern Bank of the Gambian River across western Africa. The initiative is part of the wider Africa Great Green Wall, a 6,500 km tree-planting and land restoration project stretching across the Sahel region of Africa from The Gambia in the west to Djibouti in the east.
The planting symbolizes the region’s connection with the transatlantic slave trade, with each tree planted representing one of the 12.5 million men, women, and children forcibly removed from the area for the labor that fueled colonization.
Today, across the Sahel region, climate breakdown is forcing new displacement of peoples due to land degradation, desertification, and impacts on agricultural productivity. These issues form the core of the contemporary climate justice agenda.
The Atlantic Slave Memorial is a project rooted in remembrance and inspired by hope for future justice across the region. The core components of the project include:
- Planting trees to combat desertification and enhance soil fertility.
- Restoring mangrove to prevent coastal erosion, reduce flooding, and restore biodiversity.
- Creating a carbon sink, with up to 6.25 million tonnes of CO2e sequestration over 20 years.
- Creating jobs for nursery workers, engaging communities across 295 villages, and creating seedbank cooperatives led by women and youth.
This project, driven by Gambian youth leadership, is a formidable example of how honoring the past through the strength of community collaboration at a local and regional level can sow the seeds of a just and resilient future.
