In 2016, it was an opportunity to discover a beautiful new project when the German broadcaster DW contacted me to film a project in south-west Morocco. On Mount Boutmezguida in the Anti-Moroccan Atlas, I met Mr Mbarek. He had never imagined that the fog enveloping the neighboring peaks would change the life of his village.
In Morocco, women from the NGO Dar Si Hmad designed and installed the world’s largest operational fog water harvesting system in the Sidi Ifni mountains in 2015, supplying hundreds of households. The women used to waste many hours each day trying to get clean water. The tribes who live in these valleys have been known in history as warriors since the 12th century, this is the land of Ait Baamrane.
On Mount Boutmezguida in the Anti-Moroccan Atlas, I met Mr Mbarek. He had never imagined that the fog enveloping the neighboring peaks would change the life of his village. Mount Boutmezguida, at an altitude of 1,225 meters, is covered in fog for an average of 130 days a year.
For hours each day, often before sunrise, the women of the village walked 5km (3 miles) to fetch water from wells, but with groundwater levels falling due to overuse, drought, and climate change, the challenge of getting enough water each day was becoming increasingly difficult. Almost half of the people in the region have given up their rural way of life. They have migrated to the cities.
With the future of the region in doubt, a mathematician whose family came from the area had the idea or the flame: To use the fog to produce water. It’s a technique that has been used for thousands of years and that, according to the Spanish geographer María Victoria Marzol Jaén in her book published in 2003, was used by the indigenous Amazigh people of the Canary Islands, which are now part of Spain.
Positioned in front of the wind that carries clouds and fog, the nets catch the water particles suspended in the air that make up the fog. These gradually accumulate in the net, eventually forming a network of water that can be transported or stored.
Mr. Aissa Derhem – the mathematician – discovered this technique when he was living in Canada in the 1980s to study for his doctorate. He returned to Morocco to found an association “Dar-Si-Hmad” for Development, education and Culture (DSH), it is also the ideal junction that allowed him since April 2010 to carry out his famous project of water collection fog. A great idea and above all a realistic approach.
23 Sept 2024 – Rabat (Morocco)
For “Moroccan Fixers Website”
By: Khalid Leo FAKHAR – Journalist and TV Producer (Based in Rabat)
