In April 2025. The Colonist Report Africa set out to understand the reason behind the several deaths of animals and plants in Northwest Mali, our reporter, Dave Dembele looks back from April 2024 to April 2025 to understand the issue…
Edited by Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi, Woke Kevin
The world’s weather is changing a lot, and it’s causing havoc in northwest Mali. The environment is slowly dying, hurting animals and farms. The small local economy, which relies on healthy land, is struggling badly because there isn’t enough food for animals anymore.
In April 2024, in the small town of Hawa Dembaya, halfway between Diéma and Kayes, the legendary national road is difficult to use. The road’s poor condition, coupled with the scorching heat of the sun, means that the vehicles that use it have to suffer.
The road from Diema to Kayes, which is a bit northwest of Mali near the Senegal border, has dead animals spread all along it. The Colonist Report Africa understands that the animals had died because they were hungry and thirsty. The weather is very hot and dry, with the harmattan in full swing
The sun burns with incredible intensity. The animals are desperate to find the few watering holes where they can quench their thirst.
In this area, up to the Mali-Senegal border, vegetation cover represents only 2.30% of the region’s surface area, estimated at 12.9 km2 out of the 1.24 million km2 of the country as a whole.
This ratio, according to an environmental expert, is far from the 10-30% standard recommended for the Sudano-Sahelian zone. Dr Abdoulaye Coulibaly, climatologist at Mali-Météo, told The Colonist Report Africa that the situation has never been so worrying, and is worsening year after year.
Scarcity of grazing land
About 100 kilometers from the northern town of Kayes, the waterholes outside the town of Yelimané are all dry as winter begins in 2024. And the special wells that herders depend on are broken because they haven’t been fixed.
“The watering of animals is carried out in the most difficult conditions. Immediate watering points are drying up, and there’s no hay. This has an impact on the sale price of livestock. Customers don’t know how much it costs to keep our animals alive,” said Oussou Camara, a livestock breeder in Nara, a town in rural areas in Southwestern Mali.
In Nara, as in other parts of Kayes, economic activity is heavily dependent on the livestock trade. The absence of ponds and the lack of watering holes caused the death of many animals, whose herders often have no choice but to abandon them to their sad fate in an overheated region dotted with sand and stunted, thorny, bare trees.
Animal roaming then appears as a tough alternative to keep the animals alive. “Herbaceous and woody species no longer exist on our herd’s range. Letting the animals roam is not a farmer’s wish. It’s the worst option. It really is when you have no choice. The tragedy is that many of our animals don’t come back anymore,” says Almoustapha Diallo, another breeder whom The Colonist Report Africa met at the livestock market in Diéma, a town halfway between Bamako and Kayes.
“The markets are less and less supplied, because the livestock is decimating due to the fact that nature doesn’t help, and breeders don’t have the strength to provide all the animals with food. Livestock farming is dying. At this rate, we’ll be out of work,” warns Mody Diallo, representative of the National Federation of Interprofessional Groups of the Livestock and Meat Sector in Mali (FEBEVIM) in Kayes.
The perilous equation of bush fires and the disastrous use of cyanide
In a context of ever-shrinking vegetation cover, such as that of Kayes, bush fires are proving to be a factor aggravating the pastoral situation.
According to the Forestry Information System (SIFOR), the area burned in the Kayes region has increased by 715,825 ha, or 70%, compared with 1,698,511 ha in 2021.
Alimatou Dembélé, agronomist at Mali’s Institut d’Economie Rurale (IER) said, “This trend has a serious impact on the quality of cultivable soils, especially as burnt soils are unfit and infertile”.
The instability and scarcity of rainfall have had an impact on the constant availability of pastoral resources. On the other hand, the proliferation of modern, semi-modern and traditional gold mines, coupled with bush fires, is exacerbating the forage shortage situation.
Moussa Camara, a member of the Confederation of Kayes gold miners told The Colonist Report Africa that there are around fifteen modern gold mines and around fifty semi-modern and traditional mines.
As for the health of the Falémé River (a branch of the Senegal River) and other watercourses, they are poisoned by the cyanide discharged into the water by semi-modern gold-panning units. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable at the Loulo gold mine, where the waters of the Senegal River are literally colored by the effects of human aggression and practices.
“Fish mortality and morbidity are increasingly high in the waters of the Falémé at Kayes. It’s worrying what we’ve been experiencing here in recent years. Our survival is threatened, because fishing is our livelihood, and there are no fish left in the waters,” says Moussa Dienta, a 60-year-old fisherman in the mining town of Loulo.
In the latest National Plan for Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Mali in accordance with the Minamata Convention on Mercury, published in 2020, the Malian government estimates the annual quantity of mercury illegally introduced into the country at 33.3 tonnes. The majority, 28 tonnes, is used in gold panning sites in Kayes. Mercury is readily available in the region, with 10 grams costing between $2.5 and $3.4.
Food security at risk
“Cluster Sécurité Alimentaire de Kayes”, a magazine focusing on humanitarian response issues and centralizing data from the various players involved in this area in Kayes, reveals in its January 2023 publication, a significant drop in sorghum production, a cereal that is widely consumed in eastern Mali.
The magazine reports that with the scarcity of rainfall, sorghum production remains slightly below last year’s level, with a realization rate of 94% versus 96%
The February 2024 Food Security Cluster report reveals that 126,272 people in Mali’s driest and hottest region (Kayes) received emergency food assistance via vouchers (81%) and cash (18%). Livelihood support reached 22,962 people. The region has a population of over 2 million.
According to the region’s Hydrological Bulletin 2022-2023, referring to the situation of the Senegal River Basin said, “as of 22/01/2023, a decrease in the water level in the Senegal River has been observed, with an increase in its tributaries as of the same date in 2022”.
Previously, in a 2018 study entitled “Migration and climate change”, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) gave the Kayes region pride of place due to the high vulnerability of this Malian locality to the various manifestations of climate change.
Faced with the stakes and challenges posed by climate change in the region, the UN agency decided to launch the “Strengthening Climate Resilience in the Kayes Region” project, as if to confirm the close link between climate change and migration.
The study points to climate change as one of the root causes of the departure of able-bodied people to greener pastures. “Desperate for work, populations are desperately embracing the perilous phenomenon of migration, seen more as a survival alternative,” said Jean Marie Konaté, community agent for the Red Cross and specialist in the Kayes region.
The study proposed by IOM assesses the impact of climate change on the degree of fragility of socio-economic systems and, by extension, the undermining of social, economic and productive foundations, as well as migration dynamics in the communities concerned.
While maintaining climate change as the explanatory factor behind the migratory phenomenon in the Kayes region, the study points to a decrease in rainfall, resulting in a southward shift in isohyets. “Temperatures are rising in all localities. Rainfall will increase from 1 to 5% in 2020, 2 to 6% in 2025, 5 to 8% in 2030, 5 to 8% in 2030 and 5 to 10 in 2050, 22 in 2100”.
Other details noted include: “During the years 2025, 2030, 2050, and 2100, the temperature will gradually increase by 0.5°C to 3°C (in 2100).”
The IOM reports that 87% of respondents in the Yélimané circle report that rainfall has been low in the area recently, and 63% of respondents are concerned about the disruption to the agricultural calendar, which, contrary to farmers’ expectations, has recently started late, between the months of July, August, and September in the area.
Here, populations are experiencing drought, loss of soil fertility, the disappearance of animal and plant species, erosion, the drying up and silting of waterways, and flooding.
The Great Green Wall, in the closet of oblivion
The impact of climate change on pastoral activity extends to the edge of Mauritania, which shares a direct border with the Kayes region.
No public restoration action is visible to stem what can only be described as a climate disaster.
Our telephone request via WhatsApp to hear from Mali’s environment ministry regarding the specific situation in Kayes has been unsuccessful. Furthermore, the special agency dedicated for that issue has not deigned to respond to our questions.
The regional regreening program called La Grande muraille verte (GMV) project, launched with great fanfare by the African Union in 2007 to stem desertification and initiate an ambitious reforestation and regreening program in Africa. The Colonist Report Africa wondered whether this initiative had died.
Dr. Abdoulaye Kourouma, a specialist in regional planning responded that “The commitment of the states has not been translated into action. The project required the contribution and synergy of all the Sahel countries. It was well-crafted and could have a significant impact.”
Public programs, primarily the GMV, are struggling to materialize and help foster endogenous resilience. Populations seem to be considering their survival elsewhere. This explains the increase in migration and rural exodus.
GMV, however, listed the Kayes region prominently among the six beneficiary regions in Mali.
The latest initiative is the “Strengthening Climate Resilience in the Kayes Region” project, launched in June 2022 at the National Agency for the Great Green Wall (ANGMV), which aims to reduce the impact of climate change on population mobility. Unfortunately, no results so far. The collapse of vegetation in Kayes is underway.
