Communities regreen the Sahel: Growing buffers to ensure food security, livelihoods and biodiversity
The programme 'Growing buffers to ensure food security, livelihoods and biodiversity Programme 2017-2027' is funded by DOB Ecology and is designed and executed by a group of 19 organisations in four countries.
This folder has also been translated into French: Les communautés reverdissent le Sahel.
Within this programme, Both ENDS will keep doing what it does best: connecting local organisations to each other and to relevant national and international policy makers, scientists and organisations, informing them about current (inter)national developments relevant to their work, and advocating the incorporation of this method in local and national policies.
Together with our local partners, within the next 10 years we aim to reach the following:
1) A total area of 200,000 hectares divided over three countries) has been restored using Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration by and for communities.
2) There are laws, policies and support programmes in place in three countries (local up to international) that support Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration.
3) Farmers applying Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration are organised and have access to markets for (added-value) FMNR-products.
For more information
Themes
Read more about this subject
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Alternative
Regreening
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 / 29 January 2019
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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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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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Publication / 23 December 2019
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Alternative
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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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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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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Publication / 11 July 2019
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Alternative
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 / 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 / 30 June 2016
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News / 30 August 2019
Dealing with drought: the UNCCD COP in India
Worldwide, hundreds of millions of people live in areas where the soil is depleted; often they are forced to, or the region they have been living in for generations has become increasingly arid over time. The desert is advancing and this is a global problem. Opinions about the causes of land degradation and desertification, but especially about the solutions, are very divided. To discuss this, the biennial global conference on desertification will take place from 2 to 14 September. This is where policymakers, scientists, NGOs, female and male farmers and pastoralist, herders and companies from all over the world come together. Our colleague Nathalie van Haren is present at the conference and explains why.
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News / 8 May 2019
The "Heart trumps hates" campaign calls on the Dutch to choose for solidarity
Organisations join forces against polarisation
A broad coalition of organisations has joined forces for peace, human rights, equal opportunities for all and a society where discrimination and exclusion are actively opposed. Under the name "Heart trumps hates", the organisations call upon the public to sign a manifesto and to vote against divisions and for connection at the European elections on May 23rd 2019. On Sunday May 19th an event takes place in Utrecht, where visitors can make a joint statement. People in ten other European countries will also take action on this day.
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Dossier
Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA)
GAGGA rallies the collective power of the women's rights and environmental justice movements to realize a world where women can and do access their rights to water, food security, and a clean, healthy and safe environment.
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Publication / 22 December 2015
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Publication / 1 July 2016
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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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Dossier
The Ecosystem Alliance: creating a green and inclusive economy
From 2011 to 2015, Both ENDS took part in the Ecosystem Alliance to improve the livelihoods of the poor and create an inclusive economy, through participatory and responsible management of ecosystems.
