Talk:Gourara

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Page scope

Gourara is the cannabis growing area of the Gourara oases round Timimoun, in Algeria. It covers the hemp and cannabis growing that sources report there from 1721 to 2007. The neighbouring Touat and Tidikelt oases are described in one section of the article. Algeria's history of cannabis and its law are treated at Algeria.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the Gourara is a growing area

Bellakhdar (2017, p. 130) dates the first sign he found of hemp grown in the Sahara to 1721, an act of arbitration recording a theft of kif plants at the douar of the Beni Mehlal near Timimoun. He cites A. G. P. Martin, Quatre siècles d'histoire marocaine (1923). He also writes (p. 131) that the French officers who took over the oases found cannabis and poppy grown in the Touat and the Gourara, citing Daumas (1845), Deporter (1891) and Laquière (1902).
El Watan (14 May 2007, republished by Afrik.com) reports cannabis found growing in April 2007 at Aougrout, Talmine (Ksar Bahmou), Tinerkouk (Ksar Fatis) and Ksar Yahia Oudris, by the gendarmerie brigade of Charouine and the gendarmerie company of Timimoun. Aujourd'hui le Maroc (1 May 2007) reports the Talmine and Ksar Yahia finds.
The 2007 reports place the finds in the wilaya of Adrar and do not use the name Gourara. Aougrout, Talmine and Tinerkouk are communes of the wilaya formed in 2019 with Timimoun (Law 19-12 of 11 December 2019, art. 52 bis). Otmane and Kouzmine (2011) call Timimoun the historic capital of the Gourara and name Tinerkouk among its oases; Med-O-Med names Tinerkouk and Aougrout among the sub-regions of the group of oases centred on Timimoun. Neither Otmane and Kouzmine nor Med-O-Med names Talmine; it lies west of Timimoun, in the same wilaya.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy drawn on four communes of Timimoun Province, not on accession points: Timimoun (OpenStreetMap relation 4171624), Aougrout (4171604), Talmine (4171620) and Tinerkouk (4171625). These are the communes where the sources place growing: the douar near Timimoun in 1721, and Aougrout, Talmine and Tinerkouk in 2007.
Charouine, whose gendarmerie brigade made the 2007 finds, is not part of it: no source places growing there. Where Ksar Yahia Oudris lies is not known, so it does not decide the line.
The other six communes of the province are left out for the same reason.
Since October 2026 the map line leaves out ground above 4,000 m (SRTM elevation) and land that ESA WorldCover 2021 maps as bare or sparse vegetation, permanent snow and ice, or open water at its outer edge only: land of those kinds that the kept ground encloses is inside. Each patch of kept land is its own piece, however small, so the oases are drawn one by one; pieces are not joined or dropped. About 276 km² of the 47,040 km² inside the four communes are inside the line.
The infobox point (29.26, 0.23) is the town of Timimoun.

Growing status

The status is Active: El Watan reports cannabis growing at Aougrout, Talmine and Tinerkouk in April 2007. No later report names a place in the Gourara, and no source says that growing has stopped. A find of two hectares of cannabis and poppy in March 2008 (Echorouk, 22 March 2008) names only the wilaya of Adrar, which then took in the Touat, the Tidikelt and the Gourara.

Source discrepancies

The two 2007 reports of the April finds differ:

Ksar Yahia: El Watan has "Ksar Yahia Oudris", "8317 plants d'opium, 6274 pieds de cannabis et 180 kg d'opium en graines", found on 23 April, with about ten people arrested. Aujourd'hui le Maroc has "Ksar Yahia Idris", "8.224 plants d'opium, 180 kilos de la même substance et 6.260 autres plants de cannabis", on plantations of 15 hectares in all, found on 23 April, with six people arrested.
Talmine: El Watan has "66 000 plants d'opium et 540 autres de cannabis, cultivés dans trois champs de 7 ha à ksar Bahmou", seized on 27 April. Aujourd'hui le Maroc has "43.000 plants d'opium et 500 plants de cannabis" for a plantation in the commune of Talmine found "samedi dernier".

The article gives both sets of figures, each with its paper.

Sources

Bellakhdar (2017) is a synthesis of earlier sources. His statement that the oases of Touggourt, the Tidikelt, the Touat and the Gourara already held resin-hemp plots by 1721 is hedged ("abritaient sans doute") and is given in the article as his view. On p. 132 he places the 1721 mention in the Touat; on p. 130 he places the same douar near Timimoun, in the Gourara. The article follows p. 130, which names the place.
El Watan (14 May 2007) is cited from its republication on Afrik.com, which credits the paper. It quotes officers of the gendarmerie at Charouine and Timimoun and the head of security of the wilaya of Adrar, who said: "Le granulat vient du Maroc".
Aujourd'hui le Maroc (1 May 2007) credits its figures to the Algerian gendarmerie.
Otmane and Kouzmine (2011), in Insaniyat, is the source for Timimoun as the historic capital of the Gourara, its oases, its rainfall, the foggaras and its place in the wilaya of Adrar from 1974. Its online edition has no page numbers.
Med-O-Med is a heritage database of Mediterranean landscapes; its page on the Gourara oases is dated 13 June 2017.
Law 19-12 of 11 December 2019 (Journal officiel no. 78, p. 14) lists the ten communes that form the new wilaya. It does not print the wilaya's name.

Not used

Echorouk (22 March 2008): see Growing status.

Open questions

Whether the Touat and the Tidikelt should be treated as growing areas of their own, once a source names a place in them where cannabis is grown.
Where Ksar Yahia Oudris lies.