Combating drought by protecting saplings
Koussanar, in eastern Senegal, is a small town that is expanding rapidly, surrounded by villages still rooted in rural and nomadic life. The region is hot and dry, which is exacerbated by climate change. The soil in the region is also dry and often exhausted due to a combination of factors such as unsustainable agricultural practices, (peanut) monoculture, intensive agriculture, forest fires and overgrazing. Today, however, the region's farmers and nomadic pastoralists take a different approach. They are working towards a better future by committing to the restoration of degraded land using Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).
The basic principle of FMNR is to nurture what spontaneously springs from the soil, and protect the sprouts are normally eaten by cattle or removed by farmers themselves. What are the benefits? Shade, food for cattle, hummus for the soil, an improved groundwater balance and ultimately better growth of other crops. As a result, farmers have more food security and gain extra income.
Care and protect
To achieve this, the young trees and shrubs must be given the opportunity to grow. They need to be properly pruned at the right time, and protected from livestock of nomadic groups that often move across the fields – or from villagers looking for firewood. The farmer in the photo, trained in FMNR by the Senegalese organisation ENDA Pronat, puts into practice the techniques she was taught to prune a young tree in order to stimulate its growth. We also see a red mark on the trunk: nomadic groups and the villagers then know that it is an FMNR tree that should be left alone.
Dialogue between different groups
ENDA Pronat supports local communities in the sustainable management of their natural resources. The organisation trains small-scale farming communities in agroecological skills and how to market their products on local markets. ENDA Pronat also ensures that different stakeholders - farmers, herdsmen, villagers and local authorities - talk to each other, understand each other, work together and reach agreements that benefit everyone. Of course within the framework of local agreements on the management of natural resources.
Communities Regreen the Sahel
ENDA Pronat is one of eight Senegalese organisations involved in the 'Communities Regreen the Sahel' programme. The woman in the photo is one of 11,484 farmers who have now been trained under the program in Senegal. Since its start in 2018, 27,656 hectares of degraded land in Senegal have been greened using this method. Both ENDS is the coordinator of the programme, which runs not only in Senegal but also in Niger and Burkina Faso.
This article has been published due to the International Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, installed by the UN Convention on Desertification and Drought (UNCCD) on June 17th. Here you find other articles from this series.
Themes
Read more about this subject
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Dossier
Communities Regreen the Sahel
In various countries in the Sahel, vast tracts of land have been restored by the local population by nurturing what spontaneously springs from the soil and protecting the sprouts from cattle and hazards.
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Publication / 28 January 2019
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News / 14 June 2023
Both ENDS’s partners combat land degradation and drought
For decades, the local partner organisations of Both ENDS have been developing and promoting ways to fight land degradation, desertification and drought in their surroundings. And this accounts not only for regions like the Sahel, but also for forests and wetlands. To celebrate the UNCCD's Desertification and Drought Day 2023, we'd like to show a few examples of how our partners restore ecosystems to serve the well-being of people and the environment.
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Dossier
The merits of community-based restoration
Globally, the area that is suffering desertification and land degradation is ever expanding. Unsustainable and often large-scale agricultural practices, including the copious use of pesticides and fertilisers, are a major driver of land degradation, aprocess that is further exacerbated by climate change, causing more erratic rainfall patterns, longer periods of drought and unpredictable growing seasons. This is very problematic not only for the hundreds of millions of people who directly depend on land and water for their livelihoods, but also for life on earth as a whole. It is clear that this process must be stopped and reversed, better sooner than later. But how to go about it?
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Publication / 8 April 2019
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Publication / 30 June 2016
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External link / 19 June 2020
The social practice of regreening the Sahel (Annual Report 2019)
In the first two years of the programme "Communities Regreen the Sahel", more than 10,000 farmers have been trained in Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration and the practice has expanded to more than 44,000 ha. Moreover, the number of agreements by farmers and nomadic pastoralists has increased significantly, which is important to avoid conflict over land use.
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Transformative Practice
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration
In various countries in the Sahel, vast tracts of degraded land have been restored by the local population by nurturing what spontaneously springs from the soil. They do this using a method called 'Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)'.
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Transformative Practice
Inclusive Land Governance
Both ENDS works with partners around the world to ensure that land is governed fairly and inclusively and managed sustainably with priority for the rights and interests of local communities.
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Event / 13 April 2019, 14:15 - 15:30
'Positive Vibes from the Sahel' on Africa Day in KIT Amsterdam
On Saturday April 13th, the annual Africa day will take place in the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.
Both ENDS and Voice 4 Thought will organise a joint workhop (in English), titled:
'Positive vibes from the Sahel: from regreening to slam poetry'
Facilitator: Andrew Makkinga
The Sahel region from Chad to Senegal is often seen in the Netherlands as an immensely dry, infertile area where extremists and smugglers serve and where hunger thrives. But there is so much more to tell about the Sahel region.
Over the last decades, a large number of positive social initiatives have been taken up both in the cities and in rural areas. Initiatives that create and stimulate self-esteem, culture, education, climate resilience and prosperity.
Young people are often the driving force behind these movements, which is not surprising considering that almost 70 percent of the population in a country like Niger is under the age of 25.
In this workshop Both ENDS and Voice4Thought want to tell the other story of the Sahel by highlighting some of these positive initiatives, and by showing how they are interlinked and part of a larger, bottom up movement in this area.
Hope to see you there!
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Event / 6 September 2019, 13:00 - 15:00
UNCCD COP14: Communities regreen the Sahel
At the UNCCD COP14 in India, which is taking place from 2-13 September 2019, Both ENDS is co-organising a number of side events.
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Publication / 10 October 2022
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News / 16 August 2019
Opinion: "Sustainable land use needs radical policy change"
Today, an op-ed by Nathalie van Haren and Stefan Schüller was published in the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant about the IPCC's latest report "Climate Change and Land". Below you find the English translation.
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Event / 16 May 2022, 13:00 - 15:00
UNCCD-COP15: Community Initiatives to Disseminate Agroforestry and Agroecology
Join our event, providing space for an interactive discussion among COP15 participants on multi-actor collaboration and the financing of community-based restoration
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Dossier
Rich Forests
Rich Forests promotes a sustainable and future-proof production system and supports, among other things, the transformation of degraded land into food forests. With this, people provide for their livelihood, increase their income and at the same time restore soil and biodiversity.
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News / 23 November 2018
Yacouba Sawadogo receives Right Livelihood Award!
Today, the Right Livelihood Awards 2018 will be presented in Stockholm. One of the four people who will receive the prize this year is Yacouba Sawadogo, 'the man who stopped the desert'. Yacouba, a farmer from Yatenga, Burkina Faso, is one of the founders of so-called 'Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration' with which degenerated and dry areas are becoming green and fertile again. According to Both ENDS, Yacouba's award is very well-deserved!
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External link / 31 May 2018
Supporting farmer managed natural regeneration to gain ground (Annual Report 2017)
Many people in the desertifying Sahel region have to choose: claim their land back from the desert, or leave their farms behind. In 2017, Both ENDS started a new project here, introducing a method for regreening the landscape: Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). It has proven itself in Niger, where we worked on FMNR for 15 years. By 2017, 15.000 ha of dryland had been regreened.
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Event / 14 April 2018, 11:30
Small grants, big impacts: workshop on Africa Day
On the 14th of April, Both ENDS wil host a workshop called 'Small Grants, Big Impacts' on the annual Africa day in Amsterdam. The workshop aims to demonstrate that so called 'small grants funds' effectively deliver (devopment and climate) money where it matters, to people that need it the most. Large development banks, funds, donors and governments could use small grants funds as alternative financing mechanisms to make sure their money benefits people and their environment now and it the far future.
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Publication / 8 November 2019
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Publication / 29 January 2019
