Home to 1200 people and with an altitude of 1800 m, the low Atlas Mountain area in Morocco is very dry and arid, with little to no trees outside of the river valleys. In recent years, climate change has brought prolonged periods of drought, flooding, and erosion of mountain slopes which have severely impacted the land. Soil fertility has declined, and the landscape has become extremely dry and degraded – partly as a result of implementing unsustainable agricultural techniques. Unpredictable rainfall and intense droughts have created problems such as soil erosion, landslides, and a reduction in healthy and productive land for agriculture.
Perma Atlas
In 2014, the village of Angulez – located in the Ounila Valley of the Atlas Mountains – experienced some devastating floods that further damaged farmlands and degraded the landscape. This, in turn, is driving the youth away from this region to pursue more stable futures in bigger urban parts of the country. The Perma Atlas project is working to restore and recover the valley and slopes back to their greener form by engaging local communities and farmers, providing them with techniques to sustainably restore this mountainous biome. By reintroducing techniques such as permaculture and sustainable land management practices, the project aims to regenerate and recover the High Atlas Mountains’ ecosystem. Through teaching project participants and community members how to implement interventions such as kitchen gardens, gabions, and swales, local communities learn how to work with nature, rather than against it, in order to restore their lands.
The Greener.Land team connected with Latifa Oumlil – the project leader – and flew out to learn more about the Perma Atlas project and to film the progress and experiences of local community members in restoring the Ounila Valley. The Greener.Land team met with Latifa and Khalid Hmittou, the videographer, and drove to the Atlas mountains. Over 5 days, they met with villagers, filmed the landscape, conducted interviews, and documented the implementation of different regenerative interventions. To see what the Perma Atlas project is doing to regreen the land of Ounila Valley, check out the videos on this page!
If you want to learn more about the interventions you have seen practiced in these videos, check out the intervention pages for Kitchen Gardens, Gabions, and Swales!
Location: Anguelz, Telouet, Atlas Mountains, Morocco
