Category : ICCA
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