The document discusses the challenges of promoting tree regeneration in the Sahel, highlighting the complex interplay of environmental, political, and social factors that affect forestry management. Despite various reforms and community forestry initiatives over the past decades, significant progress in forest regeneration has not been achieved, with individual actions proving more effective. It raises questions about the future of community forestry, the role of privatization, and the impact of global biodiversity and carbon sequestration agendas.

1. Promoting tree regeneration in
Sahel: why is it so complicated and
where do we go from here?
Denis Gautier & Régis Peltier

2. Land-cover in West Africa
(« GLC 2000 » – Mayaux 2004)

3. Main issues
The history of Sahelian forestry is strongly linked
to dramatic environmental and political events
The international organizations have used these
events to reform the way to manage forests in
Sahel
Almost 40 years after the first dramatic droughts,
forestry paradigms have changed at least three
times
However, little progress has been registered in
terms of forest and tree regeneration, while the
wood demand is increasing
Have the participative and integrative approach
of community forestry failed?

4. The co-evolution of the environmental
and political contexts and the forestry reforms
During the colonial period and the first part of
the post-colonial period: a centralized, restrictive
and coercive forestry
70’s:
1973: first huge drought
“Green barrier” to “fight” the desertification
State plantations of exotic species with expected high
productivity
But also: Creation of the CILSS that try to lead the
Central administrations to better involve local people
in the forest management

5. State plantations of exotic species with
expected high productivity

6. The co-evolution of the environmental
and political context and the forestry reforms
Early 80’s:
From State plantations to village plantations mainly
with exotic species (ex: World Bank and ‘village
forests’)
Experiments of “participative” approaches that use
the “forest side population” as labor force (ex: BIT in
Kita, Mali but also ‘chantiers’ in Burkina)
Mid-80’s
Beginning of more integrative and individualistic
approaches such as agroforestry or promotion of
individual plantations

7. 80’s : Beginning of more integrative and
individualistic approaches such as agroforestry

8. The co-evolution of the environmental
and political context and the forestry reforms
End 80’s - Early 90’s:
Structural Adjustment plans
Less State but not necessarily better State:
decreased control on the field and increase of
corruption
Rural people are seeking more democracy and
participative ways of managing forest resources
Beginning of a ‘revolution’, which lead people to
recapture their bush and to ‘plant the seeds’ of
decentralization

9. The co-evolution of the environmental
and political context and the forestry reforms
90’s
Launch of decentralization processes
Change of paradigm in forestry with the
transfer of forest management to local people
(+/- within the framework of decentralization)
Household energy projects in Mali and in
Niger
‘Chantiers’ around the State forests in Burkina
‘community forestry’ in Senegal, Gambia, etc.

10. Household energy projects in Mali and in Niger

11. Key scholars in paradigms’ change
Thomson’s proposals in 80’s
Giving more power to autonomous local
government
Privatization of tree tenure and common
property resource

12. Key scholars in paradigms’ change
Bertrand et al and Kerkof proposals in
mid-80’s
Transfer of management authority to local
people (professional organizations)
Reform of forest fiscal system to promote
sustainable management of the commons
(differential taxation)
Regulation and control of collective property
exploitation

13. Transfer of management authority to local people
(professional organizations or decentralized
authorities)

14. Key scholars in paradigms’ change
Ribot’s proposals in 90’s
Empowerment of local authorities as a
conditionality to sustainable management of
‘la brousse’
Accountability of the involved institutions to
empower local democracy

15. Few of these changes
in Sahelian forest paradigms
has lead local people
to regenerate trees and forests

16. Some explanations (1)
Technical points:
In a multi-purpose landscape, it is not easy to
spare a young tree from livestock or
ploughshare
Some species are not so easy to regenerate
outside a forest (or long fallow) “ambiance”

17. In a multi-purpose landscape, Not so easy to tree
regenerate outside a savanna « ambiance »

18. Some explanations (2)
Social points:
Until farmers and herders perceive resource
scarcities and view them as gravely
threatening, they manage the forest in a
‘passive’ way
Scientists were wrong about the forest
resource scarcity in Sahel, and they have
maybe discouraged donors
Cf Arnold explanation on the importance of
parklands and fallows in wood supply
Savannas are more resilient than expected

19. Some explanations (3)
Institutional and Political points:
Sahelian officials have inherited and
internalized the French colonial
administration’s antipathy to non-government
sponsored collective action
The actual forest administrations ambivalent
about resistance to decentralization
processes and an attraction for nasty fines

20. Some explanations (3’)
Institutional and Political points:
Local people know the limit of voluntary action
in preserving unregulated common property
resources and attempt informal privatization
People personally know free-riders when
investment in resource preservation is
promoted
The inflation of institutions governing the
commons generate power conflicts that are
profitable to free-riders

21. This has worked!!!!

22. This has worked!
‘Faidherbia operation’ that aims to encourage farmers to
identify and protect the growth of naturally regenerating
Faidherbia albida trees in their fields (South Niger,
Northern Cameroon)

23. This has worked!
Tree regeneration on erosion control terrace between
individual fields in Northern Cameroon

24. This has worked!
Individual small scale plantations of eucalypts around
soudanian town

25. This has worked!
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) in Niger
linked to the development of value chains (counters of
palm leaves, arabic gum, etc…)

26. This has worked!
Some industrial plantations of gum trees by exporters or
transformers (Valdafrique in Sénégal, etc.)….

27. This has worked!
Re-appropriation of woody resource by the villagers
through woodcutters’ organizations in Niger and Mali at
the detriment of urban traders but with no real
commitment in a sustainable management (at least, till
now)

28. Why is this working ?
When access to land is secured at least
for the gathering of the forest products
(which explains that most of the success stories
are on individual fields)
When a reliable demand exists for the
forest products
When an individual or a social group can
control all or a part of the forest product
chain

29. Why is this working ?
When the development projects spread an
innovation with a clear and explicit
objective
When the support is done on long-term,
from plantation to commercialization of
products
When a social group is strong enough to
impose its own rules on competing users
on the same land; or when a social group
finds allies instead of competing users

30. Conclusions
Reforestation in Sahel is mainly due to individual actions
linked to well-established chains
Community forestry is a failure in term of tree
regeneration in Sahel
Will privatization of common pool resource help in a context of
multi-uses and multi-actors, where poor people benefit from
informal chains ?
Will the experience of household energy projects that lead local
people to recapture their territories be followed by an investment
in forest regeneration in the next 10 years ?
What will be the benefit from new tools linked to global agendas
on biodiversity and carbon sequestration :
an opportunity (tenure clarification and additionality)
a menace (tenure ‘complexification’, struggles and poor exclusion) ?

31. Thank you
for your attention!