The emergence and spreading of an improved traditional soil and water conservation practice in Burkina Faso:

"This paper describes the emergence of improved traditional planting pits (zaï) in Burkina Faso in the early 1980s as well as their advantages, disadvantages and impact. The zaï emerged in a context of recurrent droughts and frequent harvest failures, which triggered farmers to start improving this local practice. Despair triggered experimentation and innovation by farmers. These processes were supported and complemented by external intervention. Between 1985 and 2000 substantial public investment has taken place in soil and water conservation (SWC). The socio-economic and environmental situation on the northern part of the Central Plateau is still precarious for many farming families, but the predicted environmental collapse has not occurred and in many villages indications can be found of both environmental recovery and poverty reduction." Authors' Abstract

Agroenvironmental transformation in the Sahel: Another kind of “Green Revolution"

millions fed, food security, Sahel, Zai, Stone bunds, Agroforestry, Soil management,

Strategies for sustainable natural resource management

This brief describes two case studies as follows: "Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest fertility rate in the world, faces increasing demographic pressure on its natural resource base.... Old strategies for coping with these new pressures on the natural resource base are becoming increasingly infeasible... Consequently, Africa's farmers require new solutions to address the increasing pressure on the continent's soil and water resources. Among hundreds of innovative efforts across the continent, two promising sets of responses have emerged in different locations.... First is the use of planting basins, an approach that has emerged in recent decades in both the Sahel and Zambia.... The second strategy involves the use of improved fallows, introduced over the past decade in eastern Zambia and western Kenya." [from Text]. The authors look at the impact and the drivers of change and conclude with key lessons learned for buidling future successes.

Re-Greening the Sahel: Farmer-led innovation in Burkina Faso and Niger

PRIFPRI1; GRP4; 2020DG

Scaling up in agriculture, rural development, and nutrition: Building on successes with regreening in the West African Sahel

Non-PRIFPRI1; 2020DG

Another kind of "Green Revolution"

A farmer-managed, agroenvironmental transformation has occurred over the past three decades in the West African Sahel, enabling both land rehabilitation and agricultural intensification to support a dense and growing population. This paper traces the technical and institutional innovations, their impacts, and lessons learned from two successful examples. The first is the story of the improvement and replication of indigenous soil and water conservation practices across the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso. Rehabilitation of at least 200,000 hectares of degraded land enabled farmers to grow cereals on land that had been barren and intensify production through developing agroforestry systems. Additionally, rehabilitation appears to have recharged local wells. The second example is a farmer-managed process of natural regeneration, using improved, local agroforestry practices over an estimated 5 million hectares in southern Niger. This large-scale effort reduced wind erosion and increased the production and marketing of crops, fodder, firewood, fruit, and other products. In both cases, income opportunities were created, reducing incentives for migration. Women benefited from the improved supply of water, fuelwood, and other tree products. Human, social, and political capital was strengthened in a process of farmer-driven change. Fluid coalitions of actors expanded the scale of the transformation. These stories have important lessons for those who seek to create effective agricultural development partnerships and meet the challenges of climate change and food security.Non-PRIFPRI1; GRP4; 2020DG

THE EMERGENCE AND SPREADING OF AN IMPROVED TRADITIONAL SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION PRACTICE IN BURKINA FASO

This paper describes the emergence of improved traditional planting pits (zaï) in Burkina Faso in the early 1980s as well as their advantages, disadvantages and impact. The zaï emerged in a context of recurrent droughts and frequent harvest failures, which triggered farmers to start improving this local practice. Despair triggered experimentation and innovation by farmers. These processes were supported and complemented by external intervention. Between 1985 and 2000 substantial public investment has taken place in soil and water conservation (SWC). The socio-economic and environmental situation on the northern part of the Central Plateau is still precarious for many farming families, but the predicted environmental collapse has not occurred and in many villages indications can be found of both environmental recovery and poverty reduction

La régénération naturelle assistée (RNA) : une opportunité pour reverdir le Sahel et réduire la vulnérabilité des populations rurales

La régénération naturelle assistée (RNA) est une pratique agroforestière qui, par la suite s’est étendue à la foresterie. Elle est peu onéreuse et les effets potentiels sur l’amélioration de l’environnement et des conditions de vie des populations rurales ont été largement documentés et établis dans certains pays comme le Niger.Dans ce pays, le processus a commencé dans certaines régions au milieu des années 1980 et est à l’origine du reverdissement dont l’échelle est évaluée à au moins cinq (5) millions d’hectares et en particulier dans des régions ayant de fortes densités de population où les paysans ont presque littéralement « construit » de nouveaux parcs agroforestiers avec des densités, qui varient de 20 à 80 arbres/ha. Ce phénomène de reverdissement spectaculaire relevé par l’Etude Sahel (2006) et d’autres publications était jusque-là passé complètement inaperçu.La régénération des arbres sur les champs produit des impacts socio-économiques et biophysiques, mais est aussi un moyen d’adaptation aux changements climatiques. En investissant dans les arbres sur leurs champs, les paysans des régions de Zinder et de Maradi au Niger ont créé des systèmes de production plus complexes, plus productifs et plus durables, qui contribuent à une réduction de la pauvreté rurale, réduisent la vulnérabilité aux années de sécheresse et augmentent la biodiversité. En raison de son potentiel de reconstitution rapide d’un couvert arboré et arbustif à peu de frais, ce type de cas de succès pourrait être une bonne option pour la mise en œuvre du programme Grande Muraille Verte au Sahara et au Sahel (GMVSS)

Rebuilding Resilience in the Sahel: Regreening in the Maradi and Zinder Regions of Niger

The societies and ecosystems of the Nigerien Sahel appeared increasingly vulnerable to climatic and economic uncertainty in the late twentieth century. Severe episodes of drought and famine drove massive livestock losses and human migration and mortality. Soil erosion and tree loss reduced a woodland to a scrub steppe and fed a myth of the Sahara desert relentlessly advancing southward. Over the past two decades this myth has been shattered by the dramatic reforestation of more than 5 million hectares in the Maradi and Zinder Regions of Niger. No single actor, policy, or practice appears behind this successful regreening of the Sahel. Multiple actors, institutions and processes operated at different levels, times, and scales to initiate and sustain this reforestation trend. We used systems analysis to examine the patterns of interaction as biophysical, livelihood, and governance indicators changed relative to one another during forest decline and rebound. It appears that forest decline was reversed when critical interventions helped to shift the direction of reinforcing feedbacks, e.g., vicious cycles changed to virtuous ones. Reversals toward de-forestation or reforestation were preceded by institutional changes in governance, then livelihoods and eventually in the biophysical environment. Biophysical change sustained change in the other two domains until interventions introduced new ideas and institutions that slowed and then reversed the pattern of feedbacks. However, while society seems better at coping with economic or climatic shock or stress, the resilience of society and nature in the Maradi/Zinder region to global sources of uncertainty remains a pressing question in a society with one of the highest population growth rates on Earth