An Africa environment seminar that ended in Dakar on Thursday said building water conservation projects and a green "Great Wall" must take priority in the anti-desertification drive on the continent.

"I am happy that the countries have become aware of the need to fight against desertification and establish the value of biodiversity," Senegalese Agriculture Minister Farba Senghor said on Wednesday at the opening of the two-day environment forum.

During the seminar, participants discussed the promotion of efforts to build a green "Great Wall" running 7,000 km long and 5 km wide, through desertification and semi-desertification areas from sub-Sahara Africa up to the Red Sea in the north and then to the east side of the continent.

African countries have already evolved National Action Programs (NAP) to work for sustainable development.

These countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In Nigeria, for example, the government has financed a shelter belt project under NAP in collaboration with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Drought. The project involves the planting of some 150 million trees along a length of 1,500 km and a width of 1 km in a bid to stop further desertification.

The anti-desertification forum attracted representatives from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Togo, Chad and Burkina Faso.

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2006)