Empowered forest guards protect natural wealth

Amadou Tijane Diallo of USAID’s Wula Nafaa project, center, discusses local conventions protecting the Ouly forest reserve near Koussanar in southern Senegal with Boubou Diallo, left, and Konaté Deme, both of Saré Boubon village. The two new forest guards, trained by USAID, were awarded a badge by local officials to designate their important role in their community. Photo: R. Nyberg, USAID

Hand-picked by their communities, these herders in southeast Senegal are on the frontline -- protecting their forests and fields from fires and unwanted livestock, and people chopping down protected trees. As newly trained forest guards in the Koussanar area, they police their communal lands.

It’s a huge responsibility. If forests are managed well, everyone around profits from them in a sustainable way. If the guards fail, the forests and fields are raided and ravaged, to the detriment of the already fragile environment.

The guards play a crucial role in the success of USAID’s Nature, Wealth, and Power concept, which is based on experiences learned by USAID throughout Africa over the last 20 years. The approach calls for environmentally-sound management of natural areas (Nature) by transferring management responsibility to local governments (Power) and creating wealth through sustainable use of local, natural products (Wealth).

Koussanar, a town of about 2,000 people which lies 30 miles west of the regional capital, Tambacounda, is a case in point. Here, dozens of groups harvest karaya gum, baobab fruit, jujube, and fonio – lucrative alternatives to traditional cash crops of peanuts and cotton – for export. Brought together by USAID-paid local facilitators, communities work with local administrative and national forest department officials to establish rules governing the use of the forested areas, and set up fines for damaging vines and trees or setting bushfires.

Project staff has trained 64 men chosen by their local development committees in 31 villages in the Koussanar area – and 40 more from rural communities around Malème Niani – as forest guards to enforce the local forest code drafted with the help of the USAID project’s team. Koussanar is one of 24 communities where USAID has worked alongside residents and authorities to draft local conventions on resource use.

“A key objective is to get community members working with local and national authorities so they can develop forest management plans,” says Peter Trenchard of USAID/Senegal. “This will provide them the legal basis to manage and profit from the products in a sustainable manner.”

Koussanar’s local officials are convinced of the need to plan carefully for future forest products.

“Before the arrival of this USAID project, it was as if the people had not taken part at all in preserving their natural resources,” said Diambar Ba, president of Koussanar’s rural council environment committee.

At a ceremony to award the new forest guards with badges, the Koussanar Rural Council President El Hadji Massamba Ndiaye said the council would “stand behind the entire law as it relates to the forest,” adding it was imperative to protect these resources.