In the southern Moroccan village of Bounou, the Sahara is steadily advancing. Drought, heat and desertification are slowly burying homes, farmland and date palms under the sand. For twelve-year-old Chourouk, climate change is not an abstract threat, but daily life.
Amid this change, the reportage follows twelve-year-old Chourouk Bafdil. She watches her village deteriorate, her friends move away, and the future of her community come under growing pressure.
At the same time, together with other children, she tries to protect the oasis by planting trees and shrubs and learning new ways to cope with increasingly scarce water.
Her story shows how a local climate crisis connects to a global problem: the disruption of ecosystems, the loss of livelihoods, and the question of who pays the highest price for climate change. In Bounou, it is not only date palms and fields that are disappearing, but also memories, family histories and the possibility of remaining on one’s own land.
