Activists plant trees in Mali but residents strip them for firewood. They say there’s no choice

Associated Press

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Activists are planting trees in an effort to protect disappearing forests in Mali, but residents are cutting and selling firewood from them to survive. One woman says people in rural areas have no other choice for cooking. The loss of forests has become a pressing issue across Africa as the Sahara Desert creeps southward. One environmental nonprofit estimates that nearly 7,722 square miles of forest have been lost in Mali over the last three decades. The Great Green Wall initiative to plant trees in a nearly 5,000-mile line across the continent has seen millions of them die.