Climate change provides the biggest threat to Mali’s marginal dryland farmers and cattle-raising communities, so it is incredibly important that the Climate Change Conference in Paris this week is successful. This could make far more difference than all our work to mitigate its effects.
Communities in Mali have worked extremely hard this year. Local volunteers have managed to triple our work on dune stabilisation and the harvests people are getting from tree products are raising a lot of money. With your help the communities we support have planted even more trees than the Woodland Trust in the whole of Britain. Their efforts have been phenomenal and the trees are restoring biodiversity and providing the resources and materials that are vital to life.
Christian Aid has just published our study ‘The Power of Drugs Money in Mali’ and it will be presented to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs conference in Vienna next week. It is vital for Mali’s future security that Europe does not continue to provide a lucrative market for illicit drugs which are now being trafficked through the Sahara to meet this demand. The vast amounts of money (and 25% of the cocaine in Britain comes through the Sahara) are funding the growth of terrorist groups which now pose a threat to Mali, and are corrupting governance.
Our work is continuing as normal and thanks to your support we have achieved more than ever before in 2015.