Algeria's Barrage Vert (Green Dam) — State Afforestation Belt Across the High Plateaus

The Barrage Vert (Green Dam) was conceived under President Houari Boumediene and launched around 1970-71, formalised by 1974, as a state afforestation belt intended to run roughly 1,000-1,500 km along Algeria's High Plateaus and steppe zone, about 20 km wide, to hold back desertification from the south. It was carried out by the Direction Generale des Forets (DGF) via military conscripts and later the Office National des Travaux Forestiers, and Algeria folded it into the African Union's Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative after 2007.

Reported results diverge sharply by source. An FAO technical note cites about 100,000 ha of reforestation completed with a claimed 75% success rate after ten years. An independent academic review ('Bilan critique du barrage vert en Algerie') instead finds that of 160,000 ha planned, only 120,000 ha were realised, with roughly 42% survival, failure rates above 40%, and about 20% further loss to pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa) infestation. A peer-reviewed remote-sensing study of the Moudjbara perimeter in Djelfa Province (first planted 1972) found open-plantation canopy growing from 0 ha in 1972 to 11,074 ha by 2009, then collapsing 43% to 6,303 ha by 2019, with further loss projected absent intervention.

A 2023-2030 relaunch framework took operational effect on 29 October 2023: as of December 2025, Algeria's Direction Generale des Forets reports roughly 26,000 ha reforested since that restart (Radio Algerie, via webmanagercenter.com), coordinated under Decree 24-376 of 18 November 2024, which set up new institutional mechanisms for desertification control and the Green Dam's revival. Algeria's total forest patrimony stands at about 4.1 million hectares, some 2% of national land area. Earlier French-language reporting on the same relaunch phase had cited a larger, seemingly overlapping figure of 26 million trees across 43,558 ha nationally with a 75% realisation rate of programmed works -- the discrepancy between these figures illustrates the same reporting-consistency problem seen in the programme's earlier decades. This phase explicitly pivots away from the original monoculture approach toward agroforestry with more native and diverse species (Atlas pistachio, holm oak, acacia, carob, argan, olive, almond) and greater involvement of local pastoralist populations in planning and maintenance.

The original programme's documented weaknesses are extensive: Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) was planted at excessive density (over 1,600 stems/ha) on shallow, encrusted soils poorly suited to it; losses to overgrazing, illegal cutting and pest infestation were heavy; and FAO describes natural regeneration in stands over 60 years old as 'practically null'. Minimal local and pastoralist involvement in the early decades undermined long-term maintenance -- a gap the 2020s relaunch is attempting to correct.

Read the full analysis: https://www.webmanagercenter.com/2025/12/24/558547/planter-des-arbres-dans-le-desert-algerien-initiatives-green-algeria-et-relance-du-barrage-vert/