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THE BEST PEOPLE TO PLAN AND IMPLEMENT CONSERVATION PROGRAMMES ARE THOSE WHO USE THE LAND - FARMERS, HERDERS AND FOREST DWELLERS. How CAN GOVERNMENTS ENCOURAGE THEM TO DO SO?
Participation is the key to halting land degradation in Africa. Encouraging land users to participate in conservation programmes will not be easy, however, unless those involved can see positive gains in doing so. The first requirement. therefore, is to develop agricultural practices that will simultaneously increase yields, decrease risks or offer other advantages while reducing rates of degradation. In fact, identifying agricultural practices of this type is easier than might be imagined, since conservation farming practices emerge naturally from a re-evaluation of land uses.
Developing short-term benefits
The ideal conservation project is not one where farmers or other land users are paid for their labour, or invited to join a "food for work" programme, but one where they plan and implement their own solutions for their own benefit.
How can such projects best be initiated? First, a practice must be identified that is capable of both increasing profits (or reducing risks) and of conserving land better than is currently the case. For example, it is difficult people to plant and maintain wood lots as they only offer a long-term alternative to scavenging for fuel. But land users respond positively when agroforestry techniques are introduced that allow trees and crops to be grown side by side with little extra work.
Such techniques are often best introduced via demonstration plots. When local people can see how well others are doing, they will often copy without further encouragement.
Encouraging participation: the options
Deliberate conservation measures can also increase profitability. When Rwanda's Parc National des Volcans was created, farmers in the area benefited. Because forests in the area are protected, water conservation is improved and farmers reap crops even during the dry season. They also benefit from employment and income generated from the tourist industry.
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Making and using ploughs in Burkina Faso. The introduction of demonstrations, extension work and training programmes in a new technology has prompted widespread participation in a scheme that has effected a major land-use change. |
Many of Africa's small-scale farmers are women, many without the same advantages of legal title and access to credit as male farmers. Small-scale schemes that enable female farmers to increase their profitability simply, and to conserve the land at the same time, are therefore likely to be well received.
Organizing land-user associations
It is equally important, however, to ensure that land users are given all the help they need to set up their own organizations. Most rural societies have local associations capable of dealing with day-today issues but these are often not powerful enough, nor sufficiently well linked to district level organizations, to be useful in conservation programmes. Often, encouragement and a small grant are sufficient to turn these embryonic institutions into effective participatory organizations.
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Working with the farmer In its recent publication Land Husbandry: A framework for soil and water conservation, the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWC) points out that farmers, not planners, are the people who finally decide what will and will not be done on agricultural land. Farmers make rational decisions according to their own circumstances. What they decide is influenced by physical factors, such as soil and climate; the technical advice and assistance available to them; the socio-economic features of their community; and their own personal situation. The publication stresses that soil and water conservation programmes can be made more effective and acceptable to farmers if the following six points are emphasized: 1. the incorporation of soil conservation as an integral part of any farming system rather than as a separate discipline or activity; 2. the more important problem of soil productivity losses rather than just soil losses per se; 3. the greater importance of rainwater management than of formal soil conservation; 4. the greater significance of biological measures than of mechanical measures in preventing erosion and run-off; 5. the importance of reducing the volume of run-off before attempting to control its flow; and 6. the acknowledgement that action programmes based on bottom-up cooperation between technical staff and local communities are far more likely to succeed and last than those based on top-down planning. |
Providing technical advice and training
In many areas, land users are ready and willing to participate in land-use programmes, but they lack the necessary skills. Practical training, sometimes in areas unrelated to conservation, can have remarkable effects on land conservation. In Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) in the late 1970s, for example, the International Labour Organization supported a village artisan training scheme in which blacksmithing played a major role. Trainees were taught to make simple equipment, including ploughs. Demand for these ploughs soon outstripped supply, and FAO was then asked to help set up animal-powered farming in the country. As a result, many farmers have been freed of the back-breaking toil of cultivating with hand tools. In addition, agricultural land has become more fertile as mixed farming of livestock and crops has replaced arable-only systems. A simpler example comes from Kenya. Cheap nurseries established by local people, coupled with an efficient extension programme, have succeeded in persuading many Kenyan farmers to plant trees on their farms for fruit, shade, wind breaks and fuelwood. A survey in the Kakamega District of Kenya showed that 72 percent of farmers had planted trees recently and 38 percent were growing seedlings.
Publicizing land-use issues
A national publicity campaign to alert the public - particularly the rural population - to the problems of land degradation and the ways in which they can be overcome is essential to any conservation programme. Good publicity may well hold the key to success in such programmes, which may have to be conducted on a massive scale if hundreds of thousands of land users are to be made rapidly aware of the new possibilities that conservation farming presents.
The campaign should fully exploit the press, radio and even television. In addition, field days and demonstrations should be organized, conservation activities included in school programmes and leading national personalities and politicians should be asked to help stress the importance and value of the national conservation programme.
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Publicity in Cape Verde's reforestation programme Publicity was one of the key ingredients in Cape Verde's successful reforestation programme which began in the mid-1970s. The campaign slogan, widely broadcast on radio and in the press, was "Plant, plant, plant. Don't cut the trees ... plant a million trees ". Photo on right shows a school child transporting a sapling to be planted out. |
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Helping organize user associations Fighting the battle for Ethiopia's highlands Probably the largest-scale physical reclamation of eroded land in Africa took place in Ethiopia during the 1970s and 1980s. Following the drought of the early 1970s, the country's central highland plateau was badly hit. With assistance from the World Food Programme, the Ethiopian government mounted a "food for work" project, providing each worker with 3 kg of grain and 120 g of vegetable oil for each day worked. Thanks to FAO/UNDP training programmes, the initial project turned into a multi-agency, multi-donor effort in which the physical landscape was altered on a massive scale. In the first 12 months of 1980 alone, more than 34 million working days were completed. By the end of 1982 nearly 150 000 ha of agricultural land had been terraced, 70 000 ha of land reforested, 30 000 fruit trees planted and 4200 km of roads and 400 irrigations ponds constructed. One of the secrets of the success of the programme was the existence of Ethiopia's Peasant Associations - local-level organizations of farmers which command strong loyalties. The second stage of the programme successfully trained the heads of 18 000 Peasant Associations in conservation techniques. Since each association comprises hundreds of families, this programme mobilized a vast work force. In the long run, however, problems have arisen because local populations have become dependent on food aid, and lost self-motivation to improve their farms. This experience has highlighted the need to identify land-use systems that provide economic incentives for farmers to adopt techniques that will both increase their yields and protect their soils. Encouraging participation in Lesotho Lesotho's 9 000 village communities are proving critical to conservation attempts in that badly eroded country. To encourage participation in land-use planning exercises, village chiefs and an elected village development committee are used to organize meetings, many of which are characterized by the use of popular theatre - with the villagers as the actors - to air conflicts and discuss decisions. Agreements on planning are signed between the village development communities and government agencies. Local districts are responsible for implementing the plans, with the goal of handing over management of the programmes to the local communities within five years. |
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Zimbabwe: participation and land reform A new programme, the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE), is being developed in Zimbabwe to help ease the transition from communal ownership of land to more formal structures. Communal ownership of natural resources such as land, water and wildlife is the traditional system of property allocation in most of Africa. It is effective where resources are plentiful and populations small. In Zimbabwe, however, these resources are declining and differing forms of ownership are evolving to counter the resulting shortages. The CAMPFIRE programme is designed to smooth this transition. Initially CAMPFIRE will set up an institutional structure to enable local cooperatives to develop management schemes for land use, wildlife, forestry, grazing and water in specific areas, and to maximize returns from them. Voluntary community-based cooperatives will be formed to manage these resources and establish a more equitable allocation of profits than previously existed. Target areas for the programme are remote communal lands on the periphery of Zimbabwe where rainfall is low and soils are poor. Such areas cover approximately a third of the country and support some two million people. They contain only limited arable areas. The best use for the rest is wildlife management, which could offer considerable benefits. The project's aims are to make the communities living under harsh environmental constraints less vulnerable and more self-reliant. |
One country, Kenya, is already doing an excellent job of publicizing its conservation programme with the President taking a leading role and participating, in person, at demonstrations on specie: days dedicated to conservation. The President Rwanda is also heading a similar initiative.
