The Global Support Initiative to territories and areas conserved by Indigenous Peoples and local communities (ICCA-GSI) launched its COVID-19 response initiative in late 2020 to support Indigenous Peoples and local communities in 45 countries to cope with and recover from the impacts of this new challenge. This publication presents diverse examples from around the world on the coping mechanisms and recovery measures employed based on the self-determined priorities of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to address varied site-specific challenges. It also highlights the importance of the inclusion and active participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to effectively address the socio-economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the ever-increasing threats from climate change and lack of recognition of traditional medicine, amongst others.
https://associationnatudev.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CBD_COP16_Publication_ICCAGSI-V3.pdf
It is created to serve above all as a space of expression for NATUDEV and its partners, among these, the local populations in the first place.
It also aims to make its users and visitors more willing to take part in this work of very great importance, which is the conservation of nature.
As such, the site is for us a means of appealing to all, by recalling in an illustrated way the urgency to act in the face of the deterioration of biodiversity but above all by showing, through the concrete actions of populations with our modest support, that in the village even today, we can live on natural resources without destroying them irreversibly.
NATUDEV shares with rural Burkinabè communities the vision according to which to conserve is to protect and develop while using in a sustainable way without excluding local populations.
The problem of population growth and climate change should not obscure the fact that, in a context like that of Burkina Faso, it is the ways in which trees, land, straw, wildlife, water are used that make disappear our bushes, dry up the water points, make our pastures scarce.
The commitment of local actors to conserve also depends on the more or less strong place they hold in the sharing of rights of use of resources and the associated advantages.
The use of synthetic pesticides in agriculture has forms that erode the soil and force the use of expensive and unsuitable industrial fertilizers; these pollutions kill the fishes of the ponds and the bees of the fields and the hives, harm the health of the cattle, that of the man being hardly spared.
There is an obvious link between this very worrying degradation of village land and visible to the naked eye on one side and, on the other, the emigration of many young people, the vices and idleness of those who stay with their parents, the tensions within families, poverty, ignorance by not having access to schooling and training.
Unsustainable practices being man-made, their real abandonment requires the change of man himself, his way of seeing and thinking about his environment, his economy, his pride, his interest, in a word, his society today and tomorrow.
NATUDEV was born because a group of Burkinabè felt challenged as much by the possibilities offered by the riches of nature for a better life for rural populations than by the loss of these essential resources for food, health, crafts, housing, social cohesion, education and knowledge sharing, income, employment, etc.
We invite you to visit our site to find out how we work alongside village communities, decentralized communities, government and private organizations for the use of local natural potentials with a view to social and economic development concerned with long term.
Partners have been kind enough to share this exhilarating and highly noble experience with us. This is how we owe our results to the invaluable contribution of the French NGO Man and Nature and Belgian NGO ULB-Cooperation, the global ICCA Consortium, the Small Grant Program of the Global Environment Facility (SGP / GEF), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), from the IUCN-French Committee through its Small Initiatives Program (PPI). The Joseph KI-ZERBO University of Ouagadougou and the Free University of Brussels (ULB) are our first scientific partners.
You will find on the site a presentation of NATUDEV (members, technical team, operation, principles of action, areas and areas of intervention, main achievements), detailed content of each area of intervention and up-to-date information on related activities, a page dedicated to our partners with a link to their own website, our full address.
Our facebook page (NATUDEV) will alert you to news that you will find in detail on the site.
NATUDEV supports farmers working around protected areas by encouraging them to apply the modern technique of assisted natural regeneration (ANR) in their agricultural holdings. It is an agricultural technique that allows cultivation while preserving the plant cover in the field.
According to the ANR technique, the maintenance of trees, large and small, is done while respecting a certain density of the feet in the field. This allows their natural regeneration. And plant debris from trees is a natural fertilizer for the soil.
ANR has at least three advantages: slowing down the rate of extension of the planted areas and therefore reducing land pressure on conservation areas; availability of forest products from preserved trees (fruit, medicinal products, etc.); and maintaining soil fertility.
NATUDEV support consists of equipment, training and follow-up advice for farmers. Thanks to this, a total of thirty-six (36) beneficiary producers who voluntarily apply the assisted natural regeneration (ANR) technique on a hundred hectares of farms on the edge of the protected areas of the PONASI complex in the region of Center-South. The average area of ANR fields is 3.66 ha and the density of trees is between 422 and 76 feet per ha.
In a partnership that is as technical as it is financial, especially with ULB-Cooperation, it is a set of activities that have been carried out to achieve these results which producers welcome:
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are products of trees and shrubs except wood. So these are fruits, leaves, bark, etc. NTFPs benefiting from NATUDEV support initiatives are those that the populations it supports intend to promote in the long term.
The promotion of NTFPs is justified by their function as alternative sources of food and income for producers and their households. NTFPs thus allow producers not to indulge in unsustainable uses that are harmful to protected areas and natural heritage sites (poaching, logging, non-ecological agriculture, etc.).
The NTFPs concerned by NATUDEV’s actions to date are: shea butter and its derivatives (soaps, ointments, etc.), honey and its derivatives (beeswax). Significant potential in baobab fruit, balanites, néré, liana, tamarind, detarium have been highlighted for future valuations.
A thousand local promoters within the local communities are active in the supported sectors and garner, individually or collectively, very appreciable income.
ULB-Cooperation, Man and Nature and the PPI program are the main supports of the populations through NATUDEV in the development of the non-wood forest products sectors, supports which have made it possible to achieve significant advances, among which:
the regrouping of certain producers in cooperatives
Developing female beekeeping Towards the emergence of a beekeeping area in the heart of the PONASI ecological complex (number of beekeepers and beehives and competent croissants …)
Conclusive innovations in hive types
Obtaining a quality label for honey (national certification)
A marketing platform open to producers
An efficient sales system
A recognized NTFP-
Conservation of forest resources link
An obvious contribution to the improvement of incomes, social bonds, the assumption of health and school fees among beekeepers.
NATUDEV conducted an interview with one of its partner beekeepers in the person of Abdoul Razack BOULIOU, from the village of Tiakané (commune of Po) in the province of Nahouri. He is a beekeeper satisfied with his activity and especially with the support of NATUDEV that we met. On the menu of this interview: the benefits of beekeeping, the actions to conserve natural resources that result from it, etc. Let’s read rather!
NATUDEV: can you tell us what motivated you to practice beekeeping?
Abdoul Razack BOULIOU (A.R.B.): Beekeeping contributes to the improvement of our living conditions. It helps us a lot because we use the money from the sale of honey for many things in the family, especially the education and clothing of children. Beekeeping also helps us in our field work, because it allows us to acquire agricultural inputs thanks to its income. Thus, it has a positive impact on the yield of cereal production.
Beekeeping also got us used to eating honey in the family. With the disappearance of the trees, the production of honey dropped a lot. So there are a lot of people who are no longer used to eating honey. But we who make honey, we are always lucky to have honey at home. This is very good for our well-being and our health.
NATUDEV: have you already benefited from the support of NATUDEV as part of your beekeeping activity?
Abdoul Razack BOULIOU delivered his honey
A.R.B .: I have benefited a lot from NATUDEV’s support, especially in terms of training, hive equipment and accessories and support in finding outlets for the sale of my production.
NATUDEV: how do you assess the quality of your collaboration with NATUDEV?
A.R.B .: I really like it. Because it is a structure that also supports us in terms of the technical monitoring of our apiaries. NATUDEV assists us. This is what makes us progress in beekeeping. Currently, we no longer fear because before we produced honey but we did not have a market. Now the market is secure. If we produce honey, we can sell it through the sales platform set up by NATUDEV for us. And also, they are with us whenever we need them. Which allows us to always say our problems. There are many things we do together.
NATUDEV: do you encounter difficulties in the activity?
A.R.B .: in any activity, there is no shortage of difficulties. There are natural difficulties. For example, there are years when there are not enough flowers because of the winds or stormy rains that cause us to lose production. Before, as I pointed out, we were faced with the flow problem. But with NATUDEV the market is now assured. It is true that we are making progress in production, but we are still faced with the problem of resources which means that we still cannot make large quantities of honey production.
NATUDEV: Do you think beekeeping contributes to the conservation of natural resources?
The delivery of Abdou RAzack BOULION’s honey packaged for sale
A.R.B .: Beekeeping helps to protect nature because we know that it is with the flowers of the trees that bees make honey. To place the hives, you need a place with lots of trees. It is for this reason that beekeepers help protect trees and bushes.
NATUDEV: What actions are you taking to help protect the bush?
A.R.B .: We are careful to avoid bush fires since it is the first cause that can really affect the production of honey. When there are bush fires, we intervene very quickly to extinguish. During wintering, we reforest certain species. We also fight against the wandering of animals. When animals are left behind, they can not only break down the trees but also destroy the hives or cause other problems since knocking over the bees and attacking people or animals. There is also the excessive cutting of wood. Where there are beehives, if you let people cut the trees, it’s not good for honey production. Because it is the trees that give flowers for honey. We are always raising awareness so that people understand the role and importance of the bee for human life. We talk about this all the time in our beekeeping cooperative that we just created.
NATUDEV: What is your appeal to the population regarding beekeeping or the protection of nature?
A.R.B .: We are currently all witnesses that the bees are endangered. Before, when we go out only one kilometer from the village, we find trees sheltering bees, honey. Currently, there are no more. We are witnessing the disappearance of the bush. There are no more trees like before. It is not for me to say that we are all witnesses to the decrease in trees and bees. My call is that: if there are no trees, there will be no bees and human life will be almost impossible.
Interview by Ibrahima TRAORE, Communication Officer at NATUDEV
NATUDEV is the benchmark NGO in promoting ICCAs in Burkina Faso. An ICCA is a natural site conserved by a local community or a group of local communities (villages or groups of villages) and meeting the following three globally agreed criteria: governance is community (the site belongs to the community or group of communities concerned who have decision-making power over it and actually exercise it); the link between the community or communities and the site is strong enough that they are or are ready to defend it; the site shelters and conserves biodiversity. It is a category of nature conservation areas conceptualized about ten years ago by the ICCA World Consortium, which has been promoting it worldwide since then.
NATUDEV is a member of the ICCA Consortium. Its president is the coordinator of the Sahel Consortium (8 countries covered).
In Burkina Faso, NATUDEV has identified 5 types of ICCAs:
village areas of hunting interest (Zovic),
sacred groves,
sacred water points (ponds, rivers, sacred wells),
community pastoral spaces (grazing areas, cattle tracks, transhumance corridors, pastoral water points, etc.),
village forests
The coordination of the Microfinance Program of the Global Environment Facility (PMF / GEF) in Burkina Faso is the main partner of NATUDEV and the local communities in the work done with the latter for the defense and conservation of their ICCAs, their territories of life. The participation of SOS Sahel Burkina Faso is also recognized.
This partnership has led to the following results to date:
* Identification and documentation of ICCAs from 7 regions (out of 13) in Burkina Faso (the process continues)
* General assemblies of villages on the ICCAs
* Indication of ICCA by fixing panels
* Support for the constitution of the National Association of ICCA of Burkina Faso (NAICCA-BF)
* Training of representatives of 5 ICCAs guardian communities and of the NAICCA-BF office
* Contribution to the updating of the national monograph on biological diversity with an article on ICCAs
* Exchange trip to Benin between ICCA guardian communities
* Organization of a Benin-Burkina workshop on ICCAs (in Ouagadougou)
* Participation in television platforms on ICCAs
* Membership of two honorary members from Burkina Faso to the ICCA World Consortium
Based on bibliographic research and field surveys, the number of ICCAs in Burkina Faso was estimated at fifty-three thousand four hundred and twelve (53,412) in 2017. 99% of them are made up of all sacred groves (53,412 sites), 0.18% of sacred ponds (99 sites), 0.14% of community pastoral spaces (77 sites), 0.13% of Zovic (68 sites) and 0.08% of village forests (43 sites).
The total area of the ICCAs listed is 717,847 ha, or 02.62% of the national territory. It varies between 0.20 ha (sacred wood) and 95,000 ha (pasture area).
Seventy-seven (77) species of wild fauna have been inventoried in the ICCAs of Burkina Faso. The sacred ponds are home to iconic reptile and fish species such as crocodiles, catfish and carps. In the field of flora, the ICCAs of Burkina Faso are home to at least 516 species (trees, shrubs, grasses), including rare or endangered species according to the IUCN Red List, species protected according to national legislation and species that are only found in ICCAs (SANOU, 2013; SAWADOGO, 2013; KABORE, 2010; NATUDEV, Surveys, 2017).
Under Law No. 003-2011 / AN of April, 5th 2011 relating to the forest code in Burkina Faso, “A village area of hunting interest is part of the land of a basic community, affected by it for exploitation hunting resources. Its creation is proposed by the minutes of a meeting of the competent village body and confirmed by order of the competent local authority. “(Article 103).
“Village areas of hunting interest can be managed by village associations or groups or any other legal structure with legal personality …” (Article 104).
“The activities authorized in village areas of hunting interest are determined by the base community with the assistance of the local technical services responsible for wildlife” (Article 105).
Three regions of concentration: East, Center-South and Center-West
Burkina Faso has sixty-eight (68) Zovic spread over three (3) regions: East, Center-South and Center-West regions. The Eastern Region concentrates the vast majority with fifty-eight (58) Zovic against ten (10) for the Center-South and Center-West regions. The Zovic of the East cover 38,346 ha and those of the Center-South / Center-West, 21,580 ha, that is 58,926 ha for the whole of the Zovic of the country. The smallest Zovic has 14 ha and the largest, 8789 ha.
The Zovic are, for the most part, constituted on the edge of the classified wildlife areas, those of the WAP national park complex (W-Arly-Pendjari) for the eastern Zovic and those of the wildlife reserve complex PONASI (Pô-Nazinga-Sissili) for the Zovic of the Center-South and the Center-West.
Sites with multiple uses
Far beyond their hunting interest, village areas of hunting interest are areas of multiple use of natural resources for local populations. They are among the last secure reservoirs of flora and fauna in the villages that created them.
The Zovic provide wildlife, non-timber forest products (wild fruits, medicinal plants, fodder), fish, materials for handicrafts (fibers, wood, leaves, straw), constructions (roofing, beams, huts , hangars, etc.).
The direct income generated by hunting and the exploitation of various other products contributes to the financing of community projects (infrastructure, events, etc.) and to the purchasing power of local actors. Some Zovic host sacred sites to which the populations concerned are attached.
Sacred woods gather here the natural sites designated under this name or under the name of sacred groves, sacred forests, wooded sanctuaries. They also include the sacred hills. They are relics of original forests protected by local communities as an important support for their religious life, their identity and their social cohesion. They benefit from proven customary conservation rules, transmitted from generation to generation and which generally prohibit the removal or destruction of natural species found on their site.
Largest category of ICCAs in Burkina Faso
Sacred woods are present throughout the country with an increasing frequency from the Sahel region to the southern regions (SAWADOGO, 2013). Their areas vary between 0.02 ha and 300 ha (SAWADOGO, op.cit, p.107) with an average of 5.17 ha (Ibid). Survey and study data suggest that there are, on average, 6 (six) sacred groves per village in Burkina Faso. Considering the 8,902 administrative villages in the country (MATD, pers. Com. 2017), it is possible to estimate the number of sacred groves at 53,412. This justifies estimating the total area of sacred groves at 496,320 ha, or 01.8% of the area of the national territory.
Biodiversity sanctuaries
The sacred groves and their surroundings are rich in dense and diverse natural resources; they constitute refuges of many rare flora and fauna species, threatened with disappearance or disappeared in the surrounding terroirs (SANOU, 2013; KABORE, 2010). Certain flora species are only observed in sacred groves (SANOU, op.cit). SAWADOGO (op.cit, p.24) has identified 470 species from 284 genera and 74 families of Burkinabè flora are present in the sacred woods and their areas of influence, ie 24.54% of the national flora. 50% of sacred woods are shrub savannas, 20% tree savannas, 20% thickets, 10% wooded savannas.
Sacred water points in Burkina Faso concern sacred ponds, wells and rivers. They cover areas of 1.52 ha on average, or around 150 ha for the ninety-nine (99) sites identified to date (NATUDEV, Surveys, 2017).
