In the heart of Senegal's picturesque Popenguine Reserve, a group of 50 individuals, armed with cameras and dozens of questions, are slowly moving through the forest and towards the coast. The group – all community-based forestry experts from 15 West African countries and international organizations – stops seeing a group of little egrets (Egretta garzetta) feeding in shallow waters of Popenguine’s sweet water lagoon built by the local community. The group is guided by a local volunteer and ecoguard Ms Ndeye Ndella NDIAYE who explains that the reserve together with its sweetwater lagoon is the heart of the community and is hosting...

Global ambition to restore deforested and degraded lands has been increasing over the last decade as people have recognized the important role that healthy lands play in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigating climate change. This increase in global ambition can be seen in the Bonn Challenge, which increased its global restoration goal to 350 million hectares by 2030. However, there is a critical gap in many restoration efforts that many people often overlook. Restoration efforts are often gender blind.  While focused on numbers of trees and numbers of hectares, they fail to consider a critical social aspect...

Avec la participation de 25 techniciens de différents pays africains, l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (FAO), en collaboration avec le Programme ONU-REDD, a organisé un échange sur l'agroforesterie le 20 octobre 2023.  Cette session visait à mettre en commun les expériences des projets sur le terrain et à promouvoir l'échange entre les équipes techniques des pays. Trois pays ont participé à ce premier échange : la Côte d’ivoire, le Congo et la République Démocratique du Congo.  En concret, les objectifs étaient les suivants : 1/ Mieux comprendre les éléments institutionnels, légaux, fonciers, techniques, etc., à prendre en compte pour la mise...

The Government of the Congo, through the Ministry of Forest Economy (MEF), with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has mobilised funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) to implement the PREFOREST "Projet de Réduction des Émissions des Gaz à Effet de Serre provenant des Forêts dans cinq Départements de la République du Congo" and PROREP "Projet de Renforcement du Potentiel en Bois Energie Durable en République du Congo" projects. In addition to these projects, the UN-REDD Programme, while recognising the Congo as a priority partner...

Ms. Djeneba Sawadogo, aged 57, has been a cacao farmer in Cote d’Ivoire for most of her life.  She is from Affienou, a village in the south-east in Sud-Comoé Region. She is the mother of six children: 3 girls and 3 boys. Moreover, she’s already a grandmother to 4 grandchildren! Since most of her children are still in school, Djeneba shares the farm work with her eldest son. Djeneba is one of the beneficiaries of a FAO project called PROMIRE, launched in 3 regions of the country in 2022 and funded by the Green Climate Fund. PROMIRE supports agroforestry to promote...