House razings to save Niger capital's forest shield dismay locals

NIAMEY: Hamissou Issiakou grumbled as he worked to strip bare his house, marked for demolition for illegally encroaching on the tip of green forest that's keeping the expanding desert at bay from Niger's capital.His is one of nearly 500 homes being bulldozed as the authorities in the arid desert country, which is particularly at risk from man-made global warming, seek to shore up the wooded belt around Niamey's outskirts."We've bought our plots of land at great expense. In the end it's a big waste," Issiakou told AFP, after urging workers to hurry up and remove an enormous gate before the police arrive. Since the heavy machinery began rolling in at the end of June, dozens of slums, luxury houses and apartment blocks have tumbled like a house of cards.Some homeowners have just stood by and watched in dismay as the bulldozers tore down their houses. Others, like Issiakou, have rushed to remove anything of value before the two-week notice period was up, from windows, metal sheets and electrical cables to small drinking water tanks and surveillance cameras.All say they bought their land from private real-estate agencies. - 'Submit to Allah' -In a country with one of the highest population growth rates in the world, the number of residents in Niamey has doubled since 2005, from 750,000 to one-and-a-half million, according to the national statistics institute.

Thanks to that rapid urbanisation, the forest belt has lost more than half its area since it was completed in 1993 and now measures just 25 kilometres (16 miles) long and a kilometre wide. Hailing from various social classes, the woods' soon-to-be-gone inhabitants were originally attracted to the capital's outskirts by the good quality of life and reasonable cost of a plot. The distance from the bureaucracy within Niamey proper, which can often delay construction projects by years, did not hurt either. Thermos in hand, Aboul-Razak Moussa handed out coffee to the workmen using crowbars to dig up the cobblestones in the courtyard of his brand-new building."I bought the land for 12 million CFA francs ($21,000) and invested 127 million CFA francs (more than $220,000) to build my building," the owner of a welding company lamented."We submit ourselves to Allah." Businessman Ali Hamza was indignant."We're in the peak of the rainy season, it's inhuman," the father-of-10 argued. So far, at least 4,000 people have been evicted and nearly 500 homes, mostly slums, demolished, authorities say.- Rising temperatures -Carparks, petrol stations, pharmacies, shops, rubbish dumps and health centres sprung up to cater for those who made their home in the forested area.The project to introduce a green belt around Niamey is not part of the African Union's flagship Great Green Wall initiative, but its aims are the same.Landlocked Niger lies in the heart of the Sahel, a semiarid region stretching from Senegal to Sudan where temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average.At the same time, Niger suffers periods of drought and severe flooding.It is "imperative" that Niger "preserves more green spaces", Sani Ayouba, head of the Young Volunteers for the Environment NGO said.Director General of Water and Forests within the environment ministry Yacouba Seybou said on state television that since 2004 "decrees have prohibited housing in the (green) belt".Under the law, offenders face three months to two years in prison.Former ministers have "authorised private housing developments", Boubacar Maman, an official at the urban planning ministry, said.The environment ministry says a zoo and aquatic park as well as a botanic garden, sports and leisure area will soon be created within the forested green belt.bh/bam/bdi/sbk-kjm/yad