SCIENCE

Images reveal how climate change is upending life in Morocco’s oases


Morocco - Tafilalt Oasis - On July 2019 a wildfire spread over 3km across the palm grove burning more than 10,000 trees of which 2500 were palm trees. Summer wildfires are due to a combination of extreme temperatures and lying dead trees. which can easily catch fire in the summer months.

Date palms

Matilde Gattoni

The world’s oases are at the forefront of an existential battle against climate change: limited rainfall and rising heat have dramatically affected these unique ecosystems and the culture they sustain. Morocco has lost two-thirds of its oases – lush, fertile areas in the desert – in just a single century.

Morocco - M?hamid - Traditional amazigh musicians walk in the desert while performing a traditional rain chant . The amazigh culture is oral and music plays a big part in transmitting the cultural heritage of the tribe. They sing their love for the desert and recount the days when they were nomads.

Local people plead with the desert for water

Matilde Gattoni

Take the town of M’Hamid El Ghizlane, the last stop before the vast, dry expanse of the Sahara. Here, local people plead with the desert for water (pictured above). Dressed in white robes, they regularly meet at the edge of the desert to recite ancestral chants asking for an end to the drought and for life to be brought back to the land.

While droughts have always been part of life here, they used to be intermittent, allowing people to stock food and water to make it through dry times. But the oasis that sustains the community has shrunk over the past few decades, leading to scorched palm trees and threatening centuries of culture and tradition.

Morocco - M?hamid - A villager feeds his camel with herbs picked in the dry river bed of the Draa.

A villager feeds his camel with herbs picked in the dry river bed of the Draa.

Matilde Gattoni

The town’s economy has traditionally been sustained by date palms (main picture) and camel herding (pictured above), but with those livelihoods in jeopardy, many are relocating to nearby cities. Those who remain often earn a living through tourism. Former farmers turned self-taught guides offer visitors desert expeditions and tea ceremonies (pictured below) – a glimpse of the life that persists despite the challenges.

Morocco - Kasr Bounou - Mina el Bouni, around 55, preparing tea with herbs. Mina left her family house in 2008 after it was covered with sand dunes and now lives in her neighbour???s house with her family. Kasr Bounou has lost most of its inhabitants due to the desertification, only four families still live there.

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