Climate Change Threatens Ancient Moroccan Oases as Water Levels Plummet

The sight in the region is desolate. The inhabitants, powerless, witness the ruin of what had meanwhile made the pride of their region. Mohamed El Youbi is a resident of the Skoura oasis, which has around 250,000 inhabitants. He recounts having witnessed the gradual shrinking of this oasis. "The threat of its disappearance is very real," this 53-year-old community activist warns, standing in front of a dried-up irrigation canal.

According to Telquel, for centuries, "the Moroccan oases have been the focus of human concentrations, agricultural activities and architectural and cultural heritage, benefiting from their location on the trans-Saharan trade caravan route". But today, echoes Mohamed, "in Skoura, only the water-frugal olive trees are still standing." Yet, until the 1980s, "pomegranates and apple trees grew here," says Mohamed, nostalgic for that time.

According to statistics, over the past century, Morocco has already lost two-thirds of its 14 million palm trees. The increasingly frequent and devastating drought explains the situation. "The oases are no longer shields against desertification, but are now threatened with extinction due to the considerable impact of high temperatures on water resources," the NGO Greenpeace recently warned.

Lahcen El Maimouni, dean of the Ouarzazate faculty, on the sidelines of a conference on solidarity tourism in the oases, said that once attractive to farmers, "the Skoura region has been the victim of massive rural exodus". Only tourism allows some to stay, but with the threat of extinction of the oases, nothing is certain. "I’m ready to sell my land, but there are no buyers. Everyone has left!" murmurs Ahmed, a farmer from Skoura, looking helpless.

It has been more than 25 years since this fifty-year-old settled with his family, "when the area was green and water was abundant." For him, it is unbearable to see how "drought has destroyed everything," he sighs, regretting the high cost of the electric pumps used to draw water ever deeper.

"The intensive use of electric pumps has also contributed to the overexploitation of the water table," deplores Abdeljalil, an electrician in Marrakech and Agadir, where he spends most of his time. "Our life is no longer here," he says.

Mohamed pleads for the salvation of the oases. According to him, this involves "raising awareness of the danger of desertification." He bitterly regrets "the uprooting of many palm trees that have been sold to villa owners."

In 2008, the National Agency for the Development of Oasis Zones and the Argan Tree (ANDZOA) launched a major program with the planting of three million trees. "An objective achieved in 2019," assures Brahim Hafidi, the general manager of the agency. But the problem of water scarcity remains and threatens not only the oases.