Session 3- Burkina Faso- Calgary Schools

Pabré is located in the centre of Burkina Faso and is less than 400 km from the largest desert in the world.
The desertification has been sped up by the climate change
Climate change has been sped up by harmful human activity.

The vegetation and trees in particular, help to slow down the desertification process by protecting the soil and fighting global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide.

Therefore those are the main reasons that lead us to choose to plant trees.

The seeds from different types of trees have been found in nature and planted in pots.

The young plants have already been growing and we water them regularly.

Between now and the middle of winter (meaning July/August), we will proceed to the actual planting from the pots to the soil. We will dig holes and place the plants, that will have grown some more by then, in the soil where we want them to grow.

It is an old tradition for the Petit Séminaire de Pabré to plant trees every year in the winter.

Several thousands of trees of different types are then planted each year.

However, it is regretable that after each tree planting, 30 à 40 % of the planted trees die because of:

- insufficient rain

- rambling of animal stock

- abusive cutting of trees by the villagers

Despite these losses, efforts made since dozens of years are resulting in the Petit Séminaire de Pabré being in a forest micro climate.

A certain biodiversity exists as much with plants as with animals (with birds, reptiles and other small rodents).