Integrated forest resource management
The Project
Since 2019, Experts-Solidaires , a French association based in the southern French city of Montpellier, and Esho-Ko-Iya , a Beninese association based in the municipality of Glazoué, have been working together to implement environmental protection and community development actions in the Zaffé neighborhood that EKI’s members are from. A first project called “Integrated forest resource management in the Zaffé neighborhood", completed in July 2022, helped lay the foundations of effective collaboration to fight deforestation in this area while encouraging the emergence of activities that generate long-term sustainable revenue.
On the back of the success of this first phase, and on the basis of a more in-depth understanding of requirements and suitable responses, the two associations prepared a second phase of the project. The overall objective continues to be the restoration and sustainable preservation of Zaffé’s forest cover. This second phase of the project replicates the models tested during the first phase for planting trees, recuperating wood, promoting more sustainable farming systems, developing market gardening and beekeeping, and providing access to energy, in other areas of the region and to the benefit of Zaffé’s inhabitants.
The team is working in an integrated manner and the project has three components: replanting and protecting the forest, training the local population in other activities that generate revenue instead of poaching, and developing households’ and school’ access to small solar energy units. The project is scheduled to last 30 months from November 2023.
More than 48 000
plated by the end of the project
More than 100
farmers are transforming their plots of land into agroforestry systems
More than 1 000
households have access to a source of solar energy in their home.