#1: [05-Mar-04] (incomplete)

09-Mar-2007 -- After capturing the difficult-to-reach Confluence 14N 5E five days earlier, this one was quite straightforward. It falls only 3 km south of the main east-west highway across Niger.

We left Madaoua in the morning and headed east towards Maradi and Zinder where we would complete our field work on documenting the increase in tree cover that has transformed Niger's agricultural landscapes since the 1980s.

We left the irrigated off-season gardens of the Madaoua valley, and soon found a track that would take us south toward the Confluence. Our progress was thwarted by a sandy stream bed, which we followed until a crossing point was found. The confluence point lay just beyond a low hill, near a small cluster of huts, among the furrows of last year's millet field. Our two GPS units agreed perfectly, marking the exact location.

Continued at 13N 9E.