Environmental crisis narratives in the Sahel and the solutions they call for. The case of Lake Chad

Policy narratives explain problems and propose solutions. Yet with a view of being persuasive, they tend to simplify complex realities, while depoliticising how the problem came to be. In the Sahel, policies and development interventions are dominated by environmental crisis narratives, which have characteristically called for megaprojects as solutions. These crisis narratives have a surprisingly long pedigree, rooted in Eurocentric and colonial beliefs about the tropics as a dangerous, chaotic place, with a plethora of self-inflicted environmental problems. Despite contradictory scientific evidence, environmental crisis narratives on the Sahel have been persistent and continue to legitimise interventions, while silencing local environmental knowledge. This chapter reviews this literature and illustrates it by presenting the case of Lake Chad, which in development discourse is in crisis and needs to be saved from shrinkage. The lake, however, actually turns out to be in better condition than narrated. Nevertheless, a megaproject to transfer water from the Congo basin to the Lake Chad basin has been put forward as a solution to the purported crisis. In closing, the chapter briefly discusses the emerging decolonial literature on African crisis narratives and its potential to offer an alternative account closer to the complexity of reality.