Recently, though, people have begun to plant trees to lessen the force of the wind and there are shelterbelts in some areas. Winds today are perhaps not as violent and dusty as they were. When I was young, a windstorm completely obscured the sun for three days and people had to cling to trees to stop being blown over. This rarely, if ever, happens now. Despite all this, winds still blow strongly and mobile sand dunes constantly threaten newly planted crops.
Sand is one of our biggest problems.
If you look at any Mauritanian town or village, you will often see that sand has begun to creep up the house walls. If we do not immediately halt the desert spreading, then it will not be long before the fertile southern part of our country becomes enveloped by dunes. I don't think that you can blame the large Mauritanian herds for the degradation. After all, in the north of the country the vegetation has not suffered such a dramatic change - rivers still flow and there is vegetation in abundance. Too much wood has been used for construction and cooking.