Building a ‘Great Green Wall’ across the Sahel has been recognized as a powerful political slogan to strengthen the fight against desertification, but how can scientists help in such an endeavor?

This is the question the special issue of “Dossiers du CSFD” tempted to answer in October 2011.

As part of our mandate to synthesize and largely disseminate the scientific knowledge on desertification, this ‘Dossier’ has been translated: the English version has just been released.

Please download freely and disseminate largely this document (of course the original version in French is still available on our website). We will be grateful to receive comments and remarks to improve this ‘Dossier’.