I. Guèye, A. Kané and O.N. Koné
Ibrahima Guèye is deputy director of the Directorate of Water Resources, Forests, Hunting and Soil Conservation (DEFCCS) and coordinator of the Rural Forestry Development Project in Senegal.
Abdoulaye Kané was national coordinator of the Forestry Action Plan of Senegal until November 1993, when he became director of the DEFCCS.
Oumy Ndlaye Koné is head of the Information, Training and Sensitization Office (BIFS) of the DEFCCS.
Forestry issues, and especially desertification control, are now at the heart of the environmental debate in Senegal. This is therefore an appropriate moment to examine the process that has led to the present official commitment to people's participation in the rational management of Senegal's forestry resources which, it is increasingly acknowledged, have major production and protection implications for the future.
Forestry agents, long confined to their traditional strongholds (forests, nurseries)...
Forestry institutions in Senegal have changed as dramatically as the environmental situation in the past 30 years. At independence, the forestry administration which took over from the colonial system adopted a policy towards forest resources that was basically protection-oriented. The relative ecological stability of the times did not provoke major regeneration activities by either the forestry service (which seemed to focus exclusively on its functions as guardian of the forest heritage) or the local populations, who saw the forest as an inexhaustible gift of nature. As a result, intervention was basically of a paramilitary style, with the forester sometimes wearing the cloak of forest border guard, rebuffing all attempts to encroach on its resources; sometimes that of supervisor, ordering the work crew to plant trees and regenerate the forest; and sometimes that of customs officer, imposing government taxes and dues and penalizing offenders.
In the early 1970s, drought and desertification forced a change in this attitude, drawing attention to the need for vigorous action to counter the environmental damage being done to the country's ecosystems and natural resources. The forestry service therefore tightened its militarist response, turning its staff into frontline soldiers in the fight against desertification, initiating broad - sweeping rehabilitation efforts and consolidating conservation work. Over time, it became apparent that this response was inadequate, as desertification gained the upper hand and spread menacingly across the country, a threat not only to the landscape but also to rural and urban society. Thus, from the 1980s, local populations were asked to collaborate extensively with the forestry service to achieve more radical and decisive intervention. The forestry service adopted an approach more in tune with the times: sustainable rehabilitation and the conservation and management of the national forest heritage. The previous repressive attitude gave way to a greater focus on local communities and their close relationship with the forests as well as on building a constructive partnership for the management of forest resources for the benefit of present and future generations. This change in attitude was accompanied by substantial institutional changes which gradually led the forestry administration to develop:
· a participatory approach in place of its authoritarian manner;
· an educational stance in support of this participatory approach; and
· an integrated as opposed to sectoral policy.
... are now gradually reaching out to rural populations
From the beginning of the post-independence period the national Forest and Water Service assumed responsibility for most of the forest management activities initiated by the colonial administration. The service first focused on surveillance of the forest estate, with a decree of July 1935 as the basic regulatory framework. Reforestation was also pursued, although somewhat half-heartedly (filaos on the sand dunes of Niayes, cashew trees on the sandy soils of southern Cayor and Cap-Vert, teak in some of the Casamance forest area, neem along certain trunk roads, etc.). The work was entirely under government control, with a hired workforce supervised by technical experts. Community actions were limited to the occasional distribution of seedlings. With relatively few grassroots initiatives, the administration did little to meet the voiced or unvoiced needs of the local populations.
This state of affairs lasted until the early 1970s when new and damning data emerged on Senegal's biological and physical environment. The forest, resource, which had been so jealously guarded by the forestry administration and its officers, was now seen to be extremely vulnerable. Very high tree mortality rates in many forest stands paved the way for deforestation, which was worsened by subsequent human intervention. The exposed soils began to lose more and more fertility and structural stability. Desertification advanced inexorably and gradually became a distinctive feature of Senegal's environmental crisis.
In an effort to remedy the problem, the government designed and implemented large-scale tree planting projects (the reforestation and forest management project in the northern region, the gum tree and silvopastoral reforestation project in Mbiddi in northern Senegal, the dune fixation projects along the northwestern coast in Niayes, etc.). However, it soon became apparent that government action alone could not cope with the prohibitive investment and operating costs. Other players urgently needed to be brought in to raise the level of intervention and aim for sustainability.
Community participation was therefore seen to be an essential requisite from the early 1980s. This first translated into the inclusion of community components in some of the large-scale projects mentioned above, particularly the reforestation and forest development project in the northern region. Operations gradually became increasingly community-oriented, a focus that crystallized into a priority policy with the new Forest Development Framework Plan. Thus, the community reforestation project (PRECOBA) in the groundnut belt was established in 1982 with a mission to define a rural forestry strategy that fully involved the local communities. A new relationship was created between the forestry administration and the local populations, with the idea that the latter would play a full role in the rehabilitation and management of forest resources.
Initially, a top-down or command approach was used to try and stimulate local participation. This approach to community involvement meant the unilateral design of programmes (by the technical services) with a subsequent request for popular adherence. The local population therefore served as a voluntary workforce to implement a programme which, in their eyes, belonged to the forestry service, even if the people were given nominal ownership of the resulting village or community woodlands. This confusion was abetted by the old forestry code stemming from Law 74-046 of July 1974 which, in turn, modified Law 65-25 of February 1965. Neither law made explicit reference to the ownership rights of those engaged in forest planting, and this seriously jeopardized continuity. However, criticism of the forestry service, and particularly the self-criticism of forestry officers at meetings, workshops and other encounters, led to the introduction of changes to improve the approach.
The new approach was based on incentives to galvanize the local population whose involvement was increasingly recognized as being vital. However, such incentives- in the form of bonuses, as in the case of the reforestation and forest development project in the northern region, or the fencing of seedlings or provision of food supplies, etc. were usually one-offend short-term, so the initial boost inevitably wore off. The reduction or withdrawal of these incentives had a visible negative effect on the pace of implementation and follow-up. At the same time, the local populations were not yet being fully involved in the design of operations. This, of course, undermined the sustainability factor.
Further refinements led to a more participatory approach based on community motivation, responsibility and independence in the design, implementation, monitoring and long-term control of forest development efforts. This new approach was launched in 1982 with the start of the village reforestation project, PROBOVIL, introduced in the region of Louga, which straddles the ecological and geographic area of Ferlo and the groundnut belt and where the impact of desertification is most severe, both biophysically and socially. In this austere environment, PROBOVIL embarked successfully on an audacious effort to use a grassroots awareness-raising method that was in stark contrast to the incentives approach. Developed over the first phase of the project, this approach was taken up and consolidated by the village reforestation project, PREVINOBA, in the northwest of the groundnut belt in 1986. A decisive step had therefore been taken towards harnessing the energies and potential of the rural populations for forestry actions. The three projects (PRECOBA, PROBOVIL and PREVINOBA) sought to develop this orientation, although in different ways, and other projects more or less followed suit. However, there was still an element of disorder in their implementation.
There was a clear need for the forestry administration, which was responsible for the technical management of these projects, to focus more closely on harmonization and to improve management of the new relations evolving between itself and the local populations. This led to institutional change on two major fronts: a revision of the forestry code and the establishment of an information, training and sensitization office (BIFS) within the Directorate of Water Resources, Forests, Hunting and Soil Conservation. At the same time, the forestry administration and its staff assumed a more democratic and, above all, more didactic attitude.
The new forestry law (93-06) - passed by the national assembly in February 1993 - gave a strong push for the rational management of forest resources by reaffirming the right of ownership of private persons, whether physical or juridical, of the trees they plant as well as their right to exploit these resources to their advantage.
In practical terms, the innovations consisted in:
· recognition of private individuals' ownership of their planted trees and of their right to dispose of these (art. L1);· transfer of part of the National Forestry Fund, which is financed from felling charges and timber concessions, to the local communities in accordance with modalities to be fixed by decree (art. L4);
· recognition of local communities' rights to exploit forests and designated forest land in the National Estate (art. L5).
The formation of the BIFS was consolidated by an FAO institutional support project for the Rural Forestry Development Programme in Senegal. This unit, which has become a permanent body within the DEFCCS, is responsible for conceiving, coordinating and managing the extension operations of the forestry service. In concrete terms, it is responsible for:
· defining a national strategy to involve local populations in the implementation of rural forestry activities that reflect the needs of integrated land use and management;· defining an appropriate supervisory system to implement this strategy;
· fine-tuning the implementation of this strategy by using effective grassroots mobilization and sensitization techniques;
· tailoring these techniques to each of the six ecological and geographic zones of the country;
· facilitating the production and dissemination of communication aids for community mobilization and sensitization, training field agents and ensuring actual extension of priority technical topics;
· ensuring the coordination of training and retraining of forestry officers to build up gradually a cadre of appropriately skilled human resources - balancing the control aspect with the vital educational dimension.
Forestry officers traditionally have been renowned for the repressive nature of their work. For a long time this alienated them from the public, particularly rural people. This partly explains the lack of grassroots response to repeated and pressing calls by the forestry service for action to rehabilitate the environment which has been so seriously damaged by rampant desertification. The message always seemed to be interpreted by local people as a call for action of which the benefits were not clear, or worse, would in any case be denied them.
It has taken a long time, indeed spanning the whole process up to today's participatory approach, for these rather strained relations to relax somewhat. Forestry officers have in a way gone against their nature by adding to their role of technician, administrator and guardian of the forestry heritage that of educator and communicator. This has been done in an effort to win people's trust, then their sympathy and indeed their collaboration for the rational management and effective protection of the forestry resources over which they should have the final say. In this process, strict control is directed more towards external parties who are seen as a more dangerous threat to the resources, as they are far less interested in their conservation and the need for a harmonious coexistence between the forest and the neighboring communities. The forester is therefore becoming fully involved in the consolidation of a model whereby the government is the guarantor of forest resources and the people their guardian.
The forestry administration has consequently adopted an adaptive training strategy revolving around the participatory approach and implemented by the BIFS.
Such training encompasses both forestry officers (as well as others operating in the rural sector, for example women outreach workers) and the rural populations themselves. The training of forestry officers is based on an enhanced and more thorough version of the traditional curriculum, including aspects needed to reach their new target profile (that of development agents).
Graphics used in the GRAAP method of educational communication aid
At the national level, the Thiès Forestry Retraining Centre, under the DEFCCS, and the Senegalo - Swiss higher education project, under the Ministry of Employment, Labour and Professional Training, are both actively involved in pursuing this training strategy. At the same time, training has had to be adapted to the increased responsibility being shouldered by local populations. Thus, forestry officers have had to familiarize themselves with the didactic tools needed for their new function as educators: their new partnership with the people. These tools include the method of the Research and Support for Peasant Self-advancement Group (GRAAP), the Accelerated Participatory Research Method (MARP), the Diagnosis and Design Method (D&D) and rural radio, which has been particularly effective in its new interactive format.
With these tools, agents are able to establish a dialogue with local populations, helping them to voice their problems, identify appropriate solutions and apply them through techniques learned during community training sessions which reinforce and add to their many traditional skills. This grassroots training is provided directly by the forestry projects operating in the field, with support from other structures, in particular the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the rural forestry sector.
The GRAAP method is becoming increasingly popular among agents involved in rural forestry development programmes. In the light of experience gained by PREVINOBA, decentralized training sessions are regularly organized by the regional Forest and Water Services (provincial arms of the DEFCCS) under the BIFS, supervision to familiarize all foresters in the country with this working tool. Many have fully incorporated it among their field techniques, an indication of its importance. This is borne out by the remarks of a technical agent in a regional Forest and Water Service who had worked with PREVINOBA and was transferred to another region. When joining his new post in 1990, he declared that "PREVINOBA is like a school where I have acquired knowledge and skills that I am now going to use for the tasks ahead".
The same applies to the other communication tools that forestry agents use in the participatory approach, for example rural radio. This, seen in a far more interactive light than before, is now extensively used with the Senegalese Radio and Television Corporation (RTS) regularly broadcasting meetings and providing an unusual exchange of experiences among forestry technicians, radio hosts and local populations. One of the results has been to raise the level of forestry agents, motivational skills significantly.
There is now a group of 11 forestry agents who have become specialized as motivator communicator - educators. They operate regularly with RTS staff and produce rural radio programmer on forestry themes which are broadcast over regional stations.
Rural development efforts have long been hampered by an attempt to make a clear and precise distinction between its various component sectors, while the main target, the peasant farmer, was already "multisectoral". The forestry sector has paid the price of this division and has had a particularly hard time getting its message across in the rural world.
Trees and woodlands - central to the foresters' message to the rural sector tend to be ranked very low on the rural farmers' list of priorities, particularly as the goods and services they offer are long-term. They are not viewed in the same light as annual crops which provide harvests after a few months, or even in the same light as livestock which are usually able, within a year, to provide returns on investment in the form of meat or dairy products. The village area set aside for reforestation under the early community forestry formula was more or less abandoned and marginalized, with little scope for expansion, precisely because trees have low priority. As a result, the works undertaken were very unlikely to produce the desired benefits in terms of goods and services for the local populations.
Moreover, with their excessively sectoral and restrictive approach and perception (basically trees and woodlands), administratively limited foresters failed to see the central realities of the rural communities whose space they appropriated for forestry development activities. The other development agents and institutions operating in the rural sector, who were somewhat more fortunate because their message was more palatable, were not associated (or did not feel the need to be associated) with the rural forestry process.
Gradually, however, the foresters' increasing empathy with local populations and their realities led them to test and refine models to overcome these constraints. The ensuing strategy essentially calls for the integration of trees in the village landscape rather than their banishment to some obscure corner as small woodlots. The idea is to blend trees carefully with rural production as well as with rural social and cultural life by planting them on appropriate locations within the village area (fields, rangeland, pathways, public squares, allotments, etc.).
The objective, therefore, is to integrate forestry and village land use. This link is now being actively pursued by the forestry administration as part of the move to develop rural forestry. The forestry projects in the groundnut belt, particularly PREVINOBA, PROBOVIL and PRECOBA, are the linchpins of this integrated approach. The first results are undeniably promising. For example, in the village of Keur Maguèye (one of the 127 villages directly targeted by PREVINOBA), since 1987 the local population has been actively planting trees and rehabilitating woody vegetation, which has benefited the field crops (mainly Acacia albida and Borassus aethiopum). A subsequent link with the project's technical team and the Centre for Multipurpose Rural Expansion provided a more comprehensive review of all the problems affecting the village. Together with the technical experts (and support from the MARP), they looked at the village situation more closely and implemented a realistic programme of action which harmonized forestry, livestock, agriculture and other socio-economic and socio-cultural activities (upgrading access roads and pathways, various programmes of the women's promotion group).
This integrated strategy, implemented within the framework of the grassroots approach, encourages the forestry administration to form synergistic links with the numerous governmental and non-governmental structures working with rural people. With this in mind, it has set up the Village Land Use and Cartography Unit within the Division of Soil Conservation and Rehabilitation, employing landscape architects and cartographers to work alongside the forestry experts. As with the BIFS, this new structure is to become permanent in the forestry administration.
Village land-use plan for Keur Maguèye (1992-1993/94)
The institutional situation has therefore definitely improved, making it much easier to develop rural forestry, including non-timber activities? and to take into account the entire natural resource base involved in the sustainable development of the rural sector. The forestry service has also introduced the appointment of liaison officers within the administrative regions to help it to integrate its participatory strategy into overall rural development activities.
Liaison officers are already in place in the regions of Thiès, Saint-Louis and Fatick, following workshops held in each of these regions under the aegis of the forestry service and the chairmanship of the respective governors. For now? their basic functions are to generate awareness of the venous structures operating in the rural sector and to identify the scope for complementarity and, therefore, harmonization of activities. For example, in the Thiès area, 29 structures, including four forestry projects and the regional Forest and Water Service, have agreed to address the rural populations in similar teens and to adopt the same approach towards sensitization, training, programming and monitoring and evaluation in the venous fields of activity identified. As a result, they have formed a regional unit to coordinate development activities, led by the governor and with an executive secretariat made up of two representatives each from the NGOs, the projects and the administration. The unit includes the three prefects of Mbour, Thiès and Tivaouane and all projects and NGOs operating in the region. The regions of Tambacounda and Kolda are about to follow suit and all ten administrative regions should eventually have liaison officers.
Senegal's forestry sector and foresters are venturing out of their traditional strongholds and taking up frontline positions in the drive towards rural development or, perhaps we should simply say, development. A three-pronged ®evolution (participation, education and integration) is radically changing relations between forestry institutions and local populations in Senegal, as compared with some 30 years ago. A partnership for sustainable forestry development is gradually being forged, holding out the prospect that the Senegalese people of today and tomorrow will be able to meet their needs in forest products and services, and also establish and maintain a solid base for the development of their various forms of production.
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