Both ENDS
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.
After many years of resistance, in 2019 residents of Bargny, Senegal welcomed the shutdown of a coal plant in their community, as local fisherwomen retain access to their fish drying grounds. The case shows how complaint mechanisms can be a powerful tool to enforce change.
Even as climate change intensifies these challenging conditions, the Sahel need not become a desert. Unsustainable agricultural practices and overgrazing are among the main factors causing land degradation in the Sahel, which is threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Fortunately, organisations like CRESA in Niger have shown that with the right approach, desertification of the Sahel can be reversed.
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.
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.
