03/12/2023
It is with great sadness that I have to share the news that this morning Yacouba Sawadogo passed away. Much has been written about his work in battling desertification, and those who follow this page will be familiar with his story.
On a personal level, Yacouba Sawadogo has been a constant source of inspiration to me. It was back in 2008 that I first met him. At that time he was a relatively unknown farmer, working away on his farm in northern Burkina Faso. Our meeting was pure chance. I was visiting my good friend Ashley Norton who was working in the nearby city, Ouahigouya. He suggested to me that we pay a visit to this 'interesting farmer' who lived a few miles away. That first meeting started a chain of events that culminated in the production of my first documentary, 'The Man Who Stopped the Desert'.
Since that time, Yacouba Sawadogo has won many international accolades for his work, spoken at high-level international conferences, and most importantly, been recognised as a national hero in his own country:
https://burkina24.com/2023/12/03/loeuvre-de-yacouba-sawadogo-doit-inspirer-la-generation-actuelle-capitaine-ibrahim-traore/
But the most important achievement has to be the legal agreement to protect his forest from urban expansion. The threat to this oasis of biodiversity weighed heavily on his mind for many years, but in 2021, he secured the legal rights of ownership to this land, and was granted funding to fence-off the entire perimeter.
The legacy of Yacouba Sawadogo will live on; his son Loukman has taken on his father's vision, protecting the forest and teaching others the restoration techniques and farming methods that his father perfected over many years. (More can be read about this development here: https://news.mongabay.com/2018/06/farmer-managed-natural-regeneration-the-fastest-way-to-restore-trees-to-degraded-landscapes/ )
I will be forever grateful that Yacouba trusted me to tell his story. He will continue to inspire me, and so many others around the world.
