Abstract
Effective natural resource management requires interrelated technical practices and social arrangements that are appropriate to a region’s biophysical characteristics and that address protection and sustainable management of resources. This is illustrated from our experience in the Republic of Niger, West Africa. In 1980 barren plains, infertile soils, drought, dust storms, severe fodder shortages, and agricultural pest outbreaks were normal occurrences in Niger’s rural regions. In general, despite large investments of time and funding, conventional reforestation efforts had little impact. However by 2008 over five million hectares of once barren land had been transformed through wide adoption of an agroforestry method known as ‘Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration’ (FMNR), introduced in 1983. In the Aguie Department, the practice of FMNR was formalized through the Desert Community Initiative (DCI), addressing interrelated technical and social issues in resource management. New governance structures, which include marginalized groups, implement monitoring and enforcement systems enabling communities to manage land and regenerating trees. These, together with technical solutions that build on local knowledge and skills and use previously undervalued indigenous tree species, have generated a sustainable fuel-wood market for the first time. Increased linkage and compatibility between institutions at local and national levels and strengthened social capital have been crucial to these impacts. Food security and community resilience to drought have been markedly enhanced and local incomes have increased. The experience provides important lessons for approaches to addressing environmental degradation and poverty in other semi arid areas and facilitating the spread and adoption of new agroforestry systems.
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Notes
Tougiani Abasse has worked in the Maradi region since 1993 as a forest geneticist with INRAN (the National Agricultural Research Institute of Niger Republic) responsible for participatory domestication of Sahelian agroforestry species. He collaborated with the Maradi Integrated Development Project and was involved in the establishment of the Aguie Desert Community Initiative (DCI) described in this paper. Chaibou Guero, an agronomist, has directed the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) DCI project work in Aguie, since 1999 and is responsible for capacity building of the village committees described in this paper. During 17 years work in Niger, Tony Rinaudo, an agricultural scientist, developed and managed the Maradi Integrated Development Project including developing FMNR and promoting it across Niger and internationally, and also managed famine relief efforts five times and devised food for work programs.
The Maradi Integrated Development Project (MIDP) was established by Serving in Mission (SIM), a Christian missionary organization, with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency. Following the 1973–1975 famine in Niger, SIM had some relief funds unutilized. In view of the widespread loss of trees and the impact of strong winds, soil erosion and high temperatures on crop yields, SIM decided to commence the Maradi Windbreak and Woodlot project. MIDP is an extension of this earlier project.
This is based on cultivated land being located in the arid and semi-arid tropical climatic region in the vegetation band classified as ‘tree steppe’ (Yangambi classification), and on the practice that was normal prior to the introduction of FMNR of using hand tools to clear trees from farmland, such that coppicing continued.
The high absolute soil temperatures in bare plots at the onset of the rainy season are often above 50°C, a threshold reported to mark the beginning of protein denaturation in sorghum (Dogett 1988).
The DCI was initiated by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) whose involvement in the Aguie region started with a rural development project completed in 1997. This was followed by a 2 year community initiative promoting agroforestry. Good results from this second grant led IFAD to fund the DCI for 6 years (2001–2008).
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their appreciation for the extensive editorial assistance of Jocelyn Davies and helpful comments of Mark Stafford Smith and two anonymous reviewers. We also thank the people and organisations involved in FMNR and FMAFS: the Desert Community Initiative is being implemented with the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); the Maradi Integrated Development Project is managed by Serving In Mission personnel and continues to play a pivotal role in the development and promotion of FMNR and FMAFS across Niger and beyond; World Vision Niger and World Vision Australia are actively promoting FMNR in Niger and across a number of Sahelien countries respectively.
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Tougiani, A., Guero, C. & Rinaudo, T. Community mobilisation for improved livelihoods through tree crop management in Niger. GeoJournal 74, 377–389 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-008-9228-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-008-9228-7