In "Fall of civilizations" series [0] there is somewhere a mention of caravans thousands of camels long, thousands years ago, going through north africa. Imagining this one has to wonder how populous their goat herds were in that time and how much their grazing helped to degrade the pre-sahara/sahel ecosystems.

Maybe we should try to reforest those areas again.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/c/FallofCivilizationsPodcast/playlis... - highly recommended