Published in May 2022

Sand dams and our partners in southeast Kenya, the Africa Sand Dam Foundation (ASDF), feature in BBC One's 'Our Changing Planet' - their latest documentary series charting the world's most threatened ecosystems and the groundbreaking solutions hoping to bring extraordinary change.

BBC One's two-part climate emergency documentary Our Changing Planet is an unprecedented, multi-location eco-research mission, during which regions and projects were revisited over the course of seven years by six conservationist-spirited presenters to see how climate change, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, melting glaciers and wildfires are effecting local people and wildlife.

In the second episode, three of the presenters visit people fighting to rebalance vulnerable habitats around the world.

Liz Bonnin travels to California to learn about the increasingly invasive wildfires hitting the headlines. Liz also visits the Pacific coast of California, where warming seas have brought with them a new resident, great white sharks; with their potential impact on the marine ecosystem being studied intently.

Over in Brazil, Gordon Buchanan discovers a pioneering project that is trying to save one of the Amazon’s iconic predators, the jaguar. 

And Ade Adepitan (pictured above) travels to southeast Kenya to look at the effects rising temperatures are having on the land. Whilst there, Ade also visits our strategic partners, ASDF, and our sand dam projects which are helping vulnerable dryland communities in the region to build climate resilience and transform their lives and land with clean water. Ade had this to say about sand dams:

"There’s an ingeniously simple solution. It’s a community-led model which stores water in this seemingly barren landscape all throughout the dry season turning this parched soil into a life-giving oasis... After just 2 years a sand dam has the potential to bring fresh water to up to 2,500 homes as well as irrigation for growing crops. It could prove to be lifesaving, not only for people but for Kenya’s struggling wildlife too."

ASDF's Development Director, Andrew Musila Silu adds:

"Every year the levels of water are going down. The rivers which were flowing are reducing. And that means there is a challenge of water within those areas. The best solution we are able to see is sand dams."

To see how sand dams work and their impact on people and land, watch our short film here:

BBC's Our Changing Planet can be viewed here and is also available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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Our current appeal: please donate what you can to help a community in Ethiopia to build a 'Sand Dam for Peace', access clean water and reduce water-related conflict

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£25 could provide 10 cement buckets

£50 could provide two plastic 200L capacity water tanks, to hold the water required at different stages of sand dam construction

£100 could provide a set of 25 metal shovels needed to mix cement during the sand dam construction

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