Johnny McCord shifted in his chair. "You must be aware of the world's
population explosion, Miss Desage. The human race can't allow three
and a half million square miles of land to be valueless." He grunted
in deprecation. "And at the rate it was going, it would have been four
million before long."
She didn't understand.
Johnny spelled it out for her. "A desert can be man-made. Have you
ever been in the Middle East?" At her nod, he went on. "Visitors there
usually wonder how in the world the ancient Jews could ever have
thought of that area as a land of milk and honey. On the face of it,
it's nothing but badlands. What was once the Fertile Crescent now looks
like Arizona."
Hélène Desage was frowning at him. "And you suggest man did this--not
nature?"
"The goat did it. The goat, and the use of charcoal as fuel. Along
with ignorance of soil erosion and the destruction of the wonderful
watershed based on the Cedars of Lebanon. Same thing applies to large
areas of Libya and Tunisia, and to Morocco and Spain. Those countries
used to be some of the richest agricultural areas of the Roman Empire.
But you can't graze goats, probably the most destructive animal
domesticated, and you can't depend on charcoal for fuel, unless you
want to create desert."
"Those things happened a long time ago."
Johnny snorted. "When we first began operations, the Sahara was going
south at the rate of two miles a year. Goats prefer twigs and bark even
to grass. They strip a country."
"Well," the reporter said, shrugging shapely shoulders, "at any rate,
the task is one of such magnitude as to be fantastic. Yesterday, I
drove for nearly eight hours without seeing even a clump of cactus."
"The route you traveled is comparatively untouched by our efforts, thus
far," Johnny nodded agreeably. "However, we're slowly coming down from
Algeria, up from the Niger, and, using the new chemical methods of
freshening sea water, east from Mauretania."
He came to his feet and pointed out spots on the large wall map. "Our
territory, of course, is only this area which once was called French
West Africa, plus Algeria. The battle is being fought elsewhere by
others. The Egyptians and Sudanese are doing a fairly good job in their
country, with Soviet Complex help. The Tunisians are doing a wonderful
job with the assistance of Common Europe, especially Italy."
She stood beside him and tried to understand. "What is this area, here,
shaded green?"
He said proudly, "That's how far we've got so far, heading north from
the Niger. In the past, the desert actually came down to the side of
the river in many places. The water was completely wasted. Now we've
diverted it and are reforesting anywhere up to three miles a year."
"Three miles a year," she scoffed. "You'll take five centuries."
* * * * *
He shook his head and grinned. "It's a progressive thing. Water is
admittedly the big problem. But as our forests grow, they themselves
bring up the moisture content of the climate. Down in this area--" he
made a sweeping gesture over the map which took in large sections north
of the Niger--"we've put in hundreds of millions of slash pine, which
is particularly good for sandy soil and fast growing. In ten years
you've gone from two-year-old seedlings to a respectable forest."
Johnny pointed out Bidon Cinq on the map. "At the same time we found
what amounts to a subterranean sea in this area. Not a real sea, of
course, but a water-bearing formation or aquifer, deep down under
the surface of the earth--layers of rock and gravel in which large
quantities of water are lying. The hydro-geological technicians who
surveyed it estimate that it holds reserves of several billion tons
of water. Utilizing it, we've put in several hundred square miles
of seedlings and transplants of various varieties. Where there are
natural oases, of course, we stress a lot of date palm. In rocky areas
it's _acacia tortila_. In the mountains we sometimes use varieties
of the pinyon--they'll take quite a beating but are a little on the
slow-growing side."
She was looking at him from the sides of her eyes. "You're all taken up
by this, aren't you Mr. McCord?"