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 Printable version |
Fifteen years of community management of a Niger village forest |
Science et changements planétaires / Sécheresse. Volume 20, Number 4, 383-7, octobre-novembre-décembre 2009, Sécheresse en ligne, 20 (1e)
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Régis Joël Peltier, Hélène Dessard, Rainatou Gado Alzouma, Aboubacar Ichaou |
Summary : The spotted bush ecosystem on the Say area plateau in Southwest Niger was inventoried and then managed by the Energie II (PE II) project in 1991. Village groupings called “Rural Markets” (MR) were created in the voluntary villages to organize the exploitation and the sale of wood. For MR which so desired, a village forest (FV) was delimited, charted and managed. Such forests received the name “MR-Controlled” (MRC). Concerning the wood cuts, the members of the MRC committed themselves to respecting the limits of the forest, an annual quota, a minimum diameter of cut by group of species, a list of protected species and a six-year rotation between two cuts based on compartmentalizing with evolving limits. They also have to gather their wood in fixed points of sale, maintain accountancy and take taxes which are transferred to the State, the communities and the village for actions of shared interest in the social or environmental fields. On the other hand, these MRCs profited from a reduction in the taxation on wood. Following the end of PE II, these MRs were followed by the Ministry for Hydraulics and the Environment, with limited resources, in spite of the support of projects like the Project of Management of the Natural Forests (PAFN). Fifteen years after the first cuts, an inventory was carried out on the forests of two MRC of the area of Tientiergou and a population survey was made. The comparison between the results of the inventory and those previously recorded for the same zone leads us to suppose that there is a reduction in the average diameter of the stems and shows an almost total disappearance of dead trees. The surveys and the observations strongly suggest that the limits of the forest, the compartmentalized one, the diameters of exploitation and the protected spaces are not respected by the majority of the woodcutters. On the other hand, there were no agricultural clearings in the FVs. All the woodcutters questioned estimated that the creation of the MRs improved their incomes and contributed to their staying at the village and the well-being of their family, in particular in years of cereal shortage. Concerning the use of the village cash for community development, it varied from one village to another and over time. Finally, in spite of a relative technical failure which impoverished the forest resource without condemning its survival, the MRC appears to be a good school of participative democracy on a village scale and a vector of rural development, the sustainability of which remains however to be demonstrated. |
Keywords : community management, decentralization, forest resource, Niger, village forestry |
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