Preserving and developing shea parks: a sustainable solution to the sector's problems
This predominantly female sector (more than 8 million women are involved in the sector in West Africa) represents on average nearly 12% of total rural household income, and contributes up to 32% of the financial resources available to women. However, the shea industry is under increasing pressure from human activity, with trees being cut down for firewood, and deforestation by felling and bulldozing to make land suitable for cultivation or even construction.
Faced with the urgency of these challenges, 7 cooperatives in Mali and Burkina Faso involved in the EQUITE program in the organic and fair trade certified shea sector are organizing themselves and looking for solutions to sustainably preserve the resource and guarantee its quality.
Drawing on agro-ecological farming practices identified in their cooperatives or networks (notably through exchanges between cooperatives on national fair trade platforms and in the sub-region), and in consultation with local agricultural and rural development stakeholders, the cooperatives have chosen to develop and protect shea parks as a strategy to meet the economic, environmental and social challenges facing the sector.
This strategy is based on multi-stakeholder concertation and mobilization, creating spaces for collective and individual dialogue and discussion to identify levers for the development and protection of shea parks: farmers and herders, local communities, youth associations, territorial authorities, decentralized environmental and agricultural services (including Eaux et Forêts), customary authorities and traditional practitioners have mobilized to develop and protect shea parks.
Developing shea parks involves identifying and selecting the park to be developed, training cooperative members and mobilizing the community to carry out collective work.
The identification of the park to be developed is done in consultation with the various stakeholders: producers, cooperative members and non-members, herders, local community members, traditional and public authorities, agricultural and environmental services. Management cannot be carried out without the agreement of the various stakeholders, hence the need for dialogue, consultation and awareness-raising sessions. This is all the more important when development work precedes the securing of the park.
Training is provided either by a trainer directly to the members of the cooperative, or by endogenous facilitators or relay farmers who have been trained and are responsible for delivering the training. The cooperatives have also been able to call on external trainers, notably from the Water and Forestry Department and the Regional Environment Directorate.
Community development work takes place over several days, mobilizing men and women according to a schedule agreed with the stakeholders. Different agroecological practices are implemented, depending on the needs of the park to be developed: Assisted natural regeneration, stone cordon, pruning and grafting and agroforestry.
Securing the park is the subject of a consultation process involving all the stakeholders concerned by life in and around the park. The aim is to find a compromise that will guarantee the protection of a shea harvesting area from anthropic pressures (logging, deforestation for agricultural purposes, contamination by synthetic chemical inputs used in nearby crops) and from animal roaming. Secure parks generally have a buffer zone that communities can use for human, agricultural and livestock activities. The secured zone is the subject of official documents that guarantee shea nut collectors living alongside the parks secure access to the resource for an average of 15 years, while defining the rules for management and exploitation:
- Usufrut contract: a harvesting agreement between the PO and the Chantier or Unité d'Aménagement Forestier (UAF or CAF) or the local management committee responsible for managing the forest;
- The “cahier des charges”, which is the participatory definition of the rules governing forest use and the commitment of the various users to respect these rules.
- The Five-Year Management Plan, which commits the PO to seeking funding for forest management projects to compensate for logging and ensure the sustainability of the forest and its resources.
These documents are approved by the relevant local authorities, such as the Regional Environment Directorates. Not all the parks developed under the EQUITE 2 program have been secured (of the 30 parks developed, 16 have been secured), so securing is studied on a case-by-case basis with stakeholders.
Focus on securing the NUNUNA Federation's shea parks in Burkina Faso
Through the EQUITE 2 program, the Nununa federation was able to secure 3 shea parks in the communes of Léo, Sapouy and Boura, by mobilizing various local authorities, namely traditional leaders, members of the Village Development Council (CVD), village councillors and women's groups, forest management site managers (CAF) and forest management unions (UGGF). The process culminated in an operating agreement authorizing the use of the park by the women collectors, and the drawing up of specifications and a five-year plan for future development and maintenance. A management committee has been set up for each park. In all, 1,800 shea trees have benefited from RNA, pruning and grafting, 40 km of firebreaks have been erected, and 200 m buffer zones installed between the parks and the fields.
In the attached document (in french), you can find out more about the development of shea parks, particularly in terms of economic spin-offs, the long-term participatory approach, the impact on agricultural cooperatives, the effects on environmental protection, the sustainability factors identified and the challenges involved in setting up the parks.
Ms. Mathilde Mourgues