New Forms of Communication for Scaling Re-greening

AFRICAN RE-GREENING INITIATIVE Update 2013 no.4

 

Recharging a mobile phone in a village without electricity

 Background

If we want to accelerate the scaling of re-greening by smallholder farmers we need new forms of communication. The challenge for the next few years is to equip smallholders with knowledge that allows them to build new agroforestry systems or to improve existing agroforestry systems by increasing tree densities or by introducing new species.  If tens of millions of smallholder farmers will be motivated to invest in trees, then we can re-build resilience of farming systems, improve food security and reduce rural poverty to mention just some of the impacts.  Knowledge building and knowledge sharing is vital, but more is needed. We also need enabling national policies and legislation that enable farmers to invest in trees. This will be the theme of a next update. The focus of this re-greening update will be on the role and potential contribution of new forms of communication.    

If we look at re-greening successes in the Sahel, the spread of agroforestry can largely be attributed to the exchange of local knowledge amongst a growing number of farmers.  Many NGOs and projects organize farmer-to-farmer visits to promote sharing of knowledge and experience between farmers. Besides this, farmers are no fools. They observe what their neighbors and other farmers are doing and if they are convinced by what they see, they will begin applying it on their own fields. The challenge is how can we accelerate the sharing of knowledge and information between smallholder farmers in a cost-effective way?  There will always be a need for farmer-to-farmer visits, so farmers can see for themselves what other farmers have achieved who farm under similar circumstances, but what more can be done?  For example, how can mobile phones be used for knowledge sharing and can they be linked to community radios?  What role can be played by the internet in regions where the majority of smallholder farmers do not read or write?  

 

The Web Alliance for Re-greening in Africa (www.w4ra.org)

In 2009, VU University Amsterdam decided to give an honorary PhD to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.  This inspired the Network Institute of VU University to create a “Web Alliance for re-greening in Africa” (W4RA) and to explore possibilities in the Sahel for developing a project linking mobile telephony with community radio stations and the web.

The first step was to undertake field visits to Burkina Faso and Mali to meet with farmers, NGOs, radio stations and mobile phone companies to review experiences, needs and possibilities.  They wanted their project to be grounded in field realities. One of the realities is that most farmers have simple mobile phones without internet access. And most farmers don’t use SMS because they don’t read or write. The literacy issue is especially important for women as many are still quite constrained in their access to education.  The variety of regional languages also makes communication a challenge. However, many farmers in the region like to share information about their experience or to get information about prices on different local markets. Any useful method for sharing information will have to use voice as means for communication. 

The team of VU Network Institute in Burkina Faso in September 2009 grounding themselves in ICT realities. From left to right: farmer innovator Ousséni Kindo, Mathieu Ouedraogo (Réseau MARP), Wendelien Tuijp (CIS-VU), Anna Bon (CIS-VU), Prof. Hans Akkermans (VU Network Institute) and Prof. Saa Dittoh (University of Development studies, Ghana).

The team of VU Network Institute in Burkina Faso in September 2009 grounding themselves in ICT realities.  From left to right: farmer innovator Ousséni Kindo, Mathieu Ouedraogo (Réseau MARP), Wendelien Tuijp (CIS-VU), Anna Bon (CIS-VU), Prof. Hans Akkermans (VU Network Institute) and Prof. Saa Dittoh (University of Development studies, Ghana). 

Supported by EU funding staff of the Network Institute and the World Wide Web Foundation and African partners (including, for instance, SahelECO in Mali, community radio stations and farmer organisations in Mali; and Reseau MARP in Burkina Faso) jointly developed what they called the VOICES project(www.mvoices.eu).

To quote an early information leaflet: “Today, the vast majority of households in the Sahel have mobile phones. And nearly everyone owns a radio or has access to one. The radio is a great source of community information, broadcasting programs for farmers in local languages. Combining existing radio content with novel ways for voice-based access and other mobile Web services enables an increase in the speed of knowledge sharing among farmers, families and communities”.

All voice-based services developed in this W4RA-VOICES project are delivered as open-source components that can be downloaded, used, modified and further developed by local or global entrepreneurs or ICT developers. All new methodologies, services and software components and related knowledge are transferred to local innovators who are interested to further the web of voices to the benefit of farmers and their re-greening efforts and many other people in developing regions.

From left to right: Bakory Dembélé (Radio Moutian), Amadou Tangara (SahelECO), Gustave Dakoro (Radio Moutian) and Mary Allen (SahelECO). Watch their t-shirts.  

WHAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED SINCE 2009?  

The process: developing local language support
 Illiteracy and language can be barriers to communication and knowledge sharing. To make the project relevant for local stakeholders, the team developed specific language packs for two local languages in Mali: Bambara and Bomu, enabling voice-based services for these languages. Information, such as market prices of agricultural products, is often available in the form of text. Even though most farmers in Mali use mobile phones they can’t access SMS-based services because of illiteracy. W4RA-VOICES developed several voice-based systems to enable farmers accessing information. For such information to be useful in voice services, the text must be “read out” as speech.

Text-to-speech systems are used for this purpose. However, the development of a full-fledged Text-to-speech system is an expensive and resource-intensive process. Text-to-speech is usually not available in African languages. Therefore, a methodology was developed to create language packs for these African languages. This enabled the project to develop market-price readers in Bambara, Bomu and West-African French. Surveys have shown that first-language speakers find the systems easy to understand and acceptably natural. This enables the cost-effective development of voice-based services for other regions of Africa. At the request of the local communities, the current services use familiar local voices, which were recorded in Mali. The collection of speech data from several speakers is a crucial and logistically complicated aspect of what is called the development of Automatic Speech Recognition especially in places without internet access.

When using a voice service, it is natural for users to provide information by speech. Automatic speech recognition is used to perform the speech-understanding task. But there are no Automatic Speech Recognition systems for numerous local African languages, which is why we have created our own system, using open source tools along with speech data and other resources that were collected in Mali. The French telecom company Orange is one of the partners in VOICES. They contributed Emerginov, which is open source software, which enables the development of voice-based applications using mobile phones or the web. This open source software enables local ICT entrepreneurs to create new knowledge sharing solutions.

Three major products

1.     Voice-based market information system

The first system built by W4RA-VOICES is known as “Radio Marché” (or ‘market radio’). Radio Marché is a mobile voice Service for Market Information supporting farmers in the Tominian region in Mali. It supports agricultural value chains by delivering market information and simplifying the trading of goods in the region. Radio Marché is based on a combination of cell phone, voice and web technologies, and has been designed to automatically generate voice messages containing market information that can be broadcast over the radio.

Radio Marché was developed in close collaboration with local farmers and is designed to serve local needs. Radio Marché can be accessed via voice or web, using either simple mobile phone or internet. It interacts with community radio stations that broadcast the farmer’s product offerings. Currently, Radio Marché distributes market information in three languages: French, Bambara and Bomu.

2.     Tabale: a system to organize meetings efficiently and at low cost

Another example of a voice-based service that was developed is named “Tabale” and is used to send voice-based invitations to a number of people each in their own language. Tabale in Mali is the King’s drum beaten by a messenger to gather people for important occasions in the village.  If an NGO wants to organize a meeting, participants are notified by the Tabale voice message about the event, its time and venue. Each person receives the message in his or her own language. The service is very efficient and saves a lot of work and time.  Tabale can be used to send group messages to 50 phone numbers simultaneously. It enables the participants to reply and leave a voice message that is stored and can be accessed later.

3.     Foroba Blon: a system to develop citizen or village journalism

A voice-based information system for African community radio is named ‘Foroba Blon’.  In Bambara this means a space where everyone has the right to speak, and the truth must be told respectfully. For people in rural Africa, community radio is an essential and often exclusive source of information. Radio stations serve as information hubs, relay news, and share knowledge in the community. The Foroba Blon system, which has won the 2011 International Press Institute News Contest, shares technologies with Radio Marché. In this system, the voice platform is used to improve radio journalism in Mali. It allows radio staff as well as citizen journalists to call in and leave spoken reports from the field for the radio stations. The reports can then be accessed, broadcast and shared through both a web- and a voice-based interface.

Testimonies from local stakeholders in Mali

Zakary Diarra (farmer and beekeeper) collects offerings of honey from neighboring farmers to aggregate them into group supply. Using the voice-based service, the supply  of honey and shea butter can easily be broadcast on the local radio. Here is Zakary's opinion about Radio Marché:

 “My income from the sale of honey has almost doubled in one year.. I have more food stability than before this project, as I am now able to pay schooling for my four children and I could even buy a cart and a donkey last year. Without this project, I would be doing mainly regular farming, and I would have missed this great opportunity of becoming an entrepreneur and really selling honey. I am also determined to expand the number of beehives, and I advise others in the village to do the same, so that we as a group can meet the customers’ high demand, and increase our honey production and the volume of our sales.” “I am very pleased with this trading service of Radio Marché, which improved confidence and collaboration between honey producers and sellers. I am also pleased to be a contact person for the Radio Marché trading system, as this role is highly appreciated in my village. Some people now call me "Sozakary", which means "Zakary of Honey".

Naomi Dembelé, is among the many women from the village of Sira producing shea butter. Thanks to this Radio Marché trading-system we, the women who produce shea butter, are known throughout the country, and whenever there is a demand for shea nuts, people will come to me. I am proud that I am known across the country.”

Alou Dolo, developer at the ICT enterprise Yeleman in Bamako, Mali, had this to say about the W4RA-VOICES service Tabale: “When is the system free and available for everybody? I can see possibilities not only for organizations in rural areas, but also for organizations in urban settings.”

A journalist from a small community radio in Mali

Adama Tessougué is a journalist at Radio Sikidolo in Konobougou, a small village about 150 km east of Bamako in a rural region of Mali. Adama’s voice is famous as he informs and entertains at least 50.000 listeners in the 39 surrounding villages every day. “Informer sans déformer” which means "to inform without deforming", is written on the walls of the narrow corridor where we meet Adama and his colleagues. 

Radio Sikidolo has no fixed internet connection.  Adama Tessougue can check his email using a mobile internet connection, but this is very expensive. He pays a fee per minute online - so he accesses the web only now and then. Its high costs are another hurdle for people in Konobougou to use the Web.

Adama works with fifty independent citizen journalists, reporting news from the surrounding villages. They collect announcements and report the local breaking news: weddings, funerals, parties, accidents, lost cows and goats.  These voice microblogs are sent to the radio by mobile phone.

Some news items broadcast by Sikidolo are of interest to regional or national news providers. If others want to access news from radio Sikidolo, they can do so using Foroba Blon. Thus by bringing the micro-blogging service online, and allowing people to share voice-based resources, this may eventually become a  Web of Radios

How can this Web of Voices help spread re-greening and related activities?

The regional and the community radio stations can be used to spread information about farmer experience with re-greening. This can be achieved by giving  (a platform?) to farmers in their local language (or “a means for farmers to communicate more widely in their local language”.), They can be invited to visit the radio station for a live broadcast or they can call the radio station with their mobile phones and their messages are registered and broadcast later.   In this way , thousands of farmers can speak out and reach hundreds of thousands of other farmers  with relevant information.  

It will be an advantage if news about re-greening and related activities will be broadcast in a regular program at fixed hours. One of the major advantages of using radio stations to spread the information about re-greening is that it can trigger a spontaneous process that helps to spread re-greening in villages within the reach of the radio stations. This spontaneous spreading will be beyond project control and independent of interventions. For that reason it may well escape conventional project monitoring and evaluation as the spreading may well occur outside villages in which re-greening projects intervene. Catalyzing a process is exactly what is needed to adapt to climate change, address the loss of soil fertility and transform rural landscapes over large areas. Developing new agroforestry systems and improving existing ones, is urgent and should be done at scale.  The challenge is to devise ways and means to use the same Web of Voices as a tool for participatory monitoring and evaluation.  

Although there is a cost attached to developing radio programs around re-greening, its costs are low compared to other ways of spreading information. 

How can the Web of Voices be used for developing value chains?

The examples mentioned above tell the story about how smallholder farmers (men and women) are using Radio Marché to collect and spread information about the supply of agroforestry products, but also about market prices. 

Capacity building by VOICES

VOICES has developed, tested and successfully used its tools in Mali with a wide variety of partners.   It can now be rolled out in other countries. It has a mobile training lab that offers capacity building for local partners.

Sibiri Sawadogo from the village of Santena (Burkina Faso) has restored barren land to productivity using simple water harvesting techniques and also transformed 6 ha of land into a diverse forest. He is actively sharing his experience with other farmers. 

 

Some farmers write their mobile phone number on the wall of their house.

More information about W4RA-VOICES:

Project website: http://www.w4ra.org and http://www.mvoices.eu

5 minute film about the project: http://www.mvoices.eu/node/80

23 April 2013 Article in The New Scientist, about the W4RA-VOICES project:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829145.900-voicebased-web-access-helps-illiterate-get-online.html

 

13 May  Article ""The biggest media in Africa" in Silicon Africa about Zakary Diarra, honey producer in Mali, beneficiary of RadioMarché voice-based trading service.

http://www.siliconafrica.com/forget-the-web-or-the-mobile-radio-is-the-biggest-media-in-africa/

14 June 2013 More media coverage: A large article about the results of VOICES in the Science for Development Network http://www.scidev.net

2 May Malian online ICT news site mali-ntic.org reports about the m-agro pilot of the VOICES project after the Conference in Bamako, Mali, 23 April 2013. "Les Technologies vocales pour permettre aux populations défavorisées d'accéder aux TICs" by Fousseyni Sanogo.

http://www.mali-ntic.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=821:les-technologies-vocales-pour-permettre-aux-populations-defavorisees-dacceder-aux-tic

For more information about the Web Alliance for Re-greening in Africa (W4RA), please contact:

Anna Bon,  ICT Consultant (a.bon@vu.nl)

or Wendelien Tuyp (w.tuyp@vu.nl)

VU  University amsterdam
Centre for International Cooperation
De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
t + 31 20 5989074
f + 31 20 5989095

HOW VEGETATION HELPS TURN DOWN THE HEAT

This picture shows that vegetation helps turn down the heat. Even a bit of cover reduces soil surface temperatures by 6 C.

This update is about how vegetation helps turn down the heat as well as about a recent visit to re-greening partners in Senegal.

HOW TO TURN DOWN THE HEAT?

The World Bank published in November 2012 “Turn down the heat: why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided. This report makes the point that “Even with current mitigation commitments and pledges fully implemented, there is roughly a 20% likelihood of exceeding 4°C by 2100. If they are not met, warming of 4°C could occur as early as the 2060s” (p. xiii). This 4°C increase in temperatures is a global average. Certain regions are likely to experience much stronger warming. For instance “the Mediterranean, northern Africa, and the Middle East, as well as the contiguous United States, are likely to see summer temperatures rise by more than 6°C (p. 38). Quoting various studies, the report states for Sub-Saharan Africa that with 4°C or more of warming, 35 percent of cropland is projected to become unsuitable for cultivation. In a 5°C world, much of the crop and rangeland of Sub-Saharan Africa can be expected to experience major reductions in the growing season length (p.62).

The report also states that “Because agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly sensitive to weather and climate variables, (75 percent is rainfed), it is highly vulnerable to fluctuations in in precipitation and has a low potential for adaptation” (p.62). I added the bold print and want to raise the question whether it is true that African agriculture has a low potential for adapting to climate change. I would like to argue that the semi-arid and sub-humid regions of Africa (and of other continents) have significant adaptation potential, because tens of millions of hectares of agroforestry parklands in these regions offer major opportunities for turning down the heat (adaptation) and for sequestration of carbon (mitigation). On-farm trees reduce wind speed and reduce temperatures. Diversifying agricultural production systems through increased production of perennial tree crops (wood fodder, edible leaves and fruits) also buffers these systems against rainfall fluctuations and adds to their resiliency. It is interesting to note here that Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development at the Imperial College, University of London recently published “One billion hungry: can we feed the world? “ (Cornell University Press, 2012). This book contains a figure about the carbon sequestration potential of different forms of land use management (page 314). This figure shows that the carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry is higher than from any other form of land use - higher even than fromforest management, grazing management or crop management.

The picture below was used in an earlier update. It shows some young agroforestry parkland on Mali’s Seno Plains. The trees are young and tree density is high. Much too high according to agronomists as the trees will compete with the crops for nutrients and for light. However, for a number of reasons the farmers deliberately want high on-farm tree densities. Firstly, as the picture shows, the trees provide a lot of organic matter to the soil, which is good for maintaining and improving soil fertility. Secondly, the trees provide some shade to the crops. The farmers prune their trees to reduce shade, but they don’t want their crops to be exposed the entire day to the impact of the sun, so they keep some shade. Thirdly, by pruning early in the rainy season, the trees provide a readily accessible source of firewood , which reduces the time needed by women to collectfirewood at a time of the year when they are busy with working the land.

In 2011, I received an email from Bob Mann, who had measured soil surface temperatures during different times of the day in a village in Northern Burkina Faso on November 12 1989. It is important to keep in mind that November 12 is the beginning of the cool season, which explains he low temperatures measured early in the morning. “On 12 November 1989 I recorded day-time temperatures at Oursi village as follows; time air temperature in the shade and temperature on the bare ground in full sun without any shade.

tree shade bare ground

06.45 hours 25 C 23 C

10.30 hours 33 C 54 C

13.25 hours 36 C 71 C

Important micro-organisms in the top soil will die if exposed to temperatures of 55 C and over for more than 1 hour at a time. The value of woodland and vegetation cover in general is self-evident just from this one point of moderating daytime soil-temperature, quite apart from the other important values of micro-nutrient re-cycling from deep down back to the soil surface through leaf-litter fall and decomposition, along with greatly reduced wind speed and reduced soil-moisture evaporation which vegetation brings about”.

The difference in soil surface temperatures under a tree and on adjacent bare ground exposed to the sun is as high as 35°C during the middle of the day. Under the tree the temperature ranges from 25 to 36°C, which is a difference of just 11°C , but look at the situation on bare ground where temperatures increased by 48 degrees C to a high of 71 degrees!!

Also livestock prefer to hide under a tree during the middle of the day (Niger, May 2012)

It is obvious that one of the many positive impacts of agroforestry is that it helps farmers adapt to climate change by reducing temperatures of shaded ground and in the adjacent micro-climate. If tens of millions of land users across the Sahel increase on-farm tree densities, they will not only turn down the heat, but also develop more complex and drought-resilient farming systems.

Some highlights of a visit to re-greening partners in Senegal (March 11 – 19, 2013)

IED Afrique (www. ) is our key re-greening partner in Senegal. With the support of funds from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IED Afrique is developing a national policy dialogue around farmer-managed re-greening and building a movement to promote re-greening. Mamadou Fall is IED Afrique’s re-greening coordinator and we jointly undertook all activities mentioned below.

Meetings with the Forestry Service and the Ministry of Environment

We met on 3 different days with high ranking officials of the Forestry Service and with senior policy makers of the Ministry of Environment. It was striking that all staff we met agreed that significant investments in tree planting during the last few decades had produced few results. Survival rates of planted trees are low. It seemed that an exception was made for a project called PREVINOBA, which also promoted natural regeneration. During the meetings several successes with natural regeneration in Senegal were identified, but most of them are small-scale. The challenge they perceive is to expand the scale of these successes. This acknowledgement of lack of results of conventional tree planting and an increasing recognition of successes in agroforestry may lead to a paradigm change.

Visit to Kaffrine

World Vision Senegal is vigorously promoting re-greening by farmers in the area around Kaffrine. During the last 4 years, it has not only flown 88 farmers to Niger to visit re-greening in the Maradi region, but also some forestry agents. We met with farmer leaders representing a group of 70 farmer leaders (including 15 women), who organized themselves in an association and train other farmers in natural regeneration. On-farm re-greening is increasing, but one difficulty mentioned was that some farmers are circulating rumors that if you increase the number of on-farm trees, you risk losing your land to the forestry service or to the regional council. The project patiently and persistently counteracts such rumors, aided by the support of forestry agents who are now commited to supporting farmer managed re-greening.

World Vision cooperates with researchers of ISRA (the National Agricultural Research Institute). They have done research on the impact of re-greening on crop yields using different crop varieties. In one of the next updates an overview will be presented of current data regarding impact of re-greening on crop yields.

Visit to Khatre Sy

The village of Khatre Sy, at about 130 km Northeast of Dakar, is one of the first villages that organized itself to protect and manage on-farm natural regeneration. It is surrounded by a well- developed agroforestry parkland (see picture next page). Surrounding villages are looking at Khatre Sy as an example and during our meeting in this village on March 15 (see picture next page), representatives of neighboring villages joined the exchange, which took place in the shade of a neem tree (Azadirachta indica) with a dense canopy. Khatre Sy has developed vegetable gardening with the support of a credit and savings project (FADEC) and one of its impacts has been that it retains young men in the village, who otherwise would have left on labour migration.

Courtesy: Dr. Diaminatou Sanogo (national focal point World Agroforestry Centre)

Meeting in the village of Khatre Sy on March 15

GREP: a network of environmental journalists

IED Afrique collaborates closely with a network of environmental journalists in Senegal called GREP (Groupe Recherche Environnement et Presse or literally Group, Research, Environment and Press). GREP receives long-term financial support of the Netherlands Embassy in Dakar.

A meeting with two representatives of GREP led to an interview in a popular breakfast program (called Kenkéliba) on national TV channel. The 15 minute interview on Monday 18 March was supported by shots from a new documentary about farmer-managed re-greening in Senegal, which was funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Re-building a network of parliamentarians for the environment

On March 12 we met with parliamentarian Mr. Mamadou Lamine Thiam, who during the last elections was one of the few parliamentarians who got re-elected. He was leading a group of parliamentarians for the environment, which he is now re-building. This group will meet before the end of March and this meeting will be attended by re-greening partners as well as by journalists of the above-mentioned GREP. Mr. Thiam firmly aims to build a regional network of parliamentarians and other elected officials for environment and the fight against desertification.

Developing a national re-greening strategy

In the last week of March a small group of re-greening partners will meet to begin drafting a national re-greening strategy for Senegal. It will use the national agroforestry strategy for Niger s a source of inspiration and adapt it to the specific conditions of Senegal.

Presentation to USAID

On Monday 19 March, a presentation was made on the impact of regreening successes at the US Embassy in Dakar for about 15 staff members of USAID Senegal and of USAID’s regional program. Agroforestry systems in in the triangle between Dakar – Thies – Mboro Anyone who travels from Thies northwards into the direction of Saint Louis, will be struck between Thies and Tivaouane by a locally dense agroforestry parkland. Immediately North of Thies, the parkland is dominated by Borassus aethiopium?..or ronier palms (see first picture next page), whereas towards Tivaouane, the parkland is dominated more by Faidherbia albida. (see next page second picture). Elsewhere one finds more cashew nut. In all cases manioc is planted in-between the trees. When one travels from Tivaouane towards the coast, and subsequently southwards towards Dakar, one is also struck by the enormous scale at which mango is cultivated. Millions of mango trees have been planted in this region and occasionally cashew. A number of fields showed significant regeneration of Faidherbia albida.

GOOD NEWS FROM MALI SahelECO, our re-greening partner in Mali, just received a significant grant (£ 475,000) from the UK Lottery through the International Tree Foundation, which will add another £ 50,000 from its drylands program. Congratulations to Sahel ECO and the International Tree Foundation !

Regreening update March 2013

Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (second person from left) visits re-greening in Niger’s Zinder Region (February 14, 2013) and discusses with villagers about scale and impacts of re-greening

Some highlights since November 2012

Visit by the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to Niger (12 – 14 February). Luc Gnacadja, the Executive Secretary of the UNCCD visited Niger from 12 – 14 February. A key objective was to visit on-farm re-greening in the Zinder Region. The picture below was s taken in a village in the Mirriah department, which has dense young Faidherbia albida parkland, which is clearly visible in the background. The Executive Secretary is in the middle of this group of villagers, who explain the significant impacts of Faidherbia on crop yields and on their livelihoods.

This visit helped to bust some myths. One of them is that livestock is, as commonly assumed,a source of degradation of vegetation. The villagers made it clear that the manure of livestock contains seeds of trees and bushes and in this way livestock can be a source of re-greening. Twenty years ago they used all manure as a source of energy in their kitchen, but now they have sufficient firewood from pruning the on-farm trees and all manure is applied on their cultivated fields. Livestock management is also changing from extensive to semi-intensive. Another myth is that it takes a generation before trees are big enough to be exploited. Young trees need to be pruned from the first or second year and depending on species, they can grow fast.

A young man in the village using his mobile phone to take pictures of Luc Gnacadja, who was accompanied by the Governor of Zinder.

Visit to His Excellency President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger

The visit by the Executive Secretary of UNCCD involved meetings with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Water and Environment of Niger, the Niger Basin Authority, and representatives of civil society organisations and Niamey-based research institutes. Upon return from the field, a press conference was held and the national TV news reported extensively about the visit. Highlight was a meeting with His Excellency Issoufou Mahamadou, President of Niger, who showed great interest in the impressions and findings of the Executive Secretary. The President is well aware of the scale and impacts of re-greening in Niger and he reacted positively to a suggestion to create an annual Presidential Award for the best agroforestry village in Niger.

Workshop to validate a national agroforestry workshop for Niger (February 14 and 15)

About 40 participants joined a workshop in Niamey to validate a draft national agroforestry strategy. Two working groups produced very constructive comments and suggestions. The document will be finalized in the next few weeks. It is interesting to note here that the workshop was also attended by participants from Burkina Faso and Senegal. Both countries are using the draft strategy for Niger and plan to adapt it to their own specific conditions. Visit to Yacouba Sawadogo (February 8) Yacouba Sawadogo, who created a highly diverse forest on what used to be barren and degraded land not only continues to draw media attention, but he also continues to innovate. The picture below shows young baobab trees that he planted during the 2012 rainy season. The young trees were planted on very degraded land, which is where they normally will never grow. Yacouba invested in digging pits with a diameter of about 1 meter and filled these pits with organic matter. Until now all planted baobab have survived.

With regard to media attention, a major article was published on November 29, 2012 in the well regarded German newspaper Die Zeit. For those readers who understand German, the link to a shorter version of the article is below. It was a 2 pager written by Andrea Jeska and illustrated with color pictures. It triggered many positive reactions. For those who fly Emirates, this airline will soon include the documentary, “The man who stopped the desert” in its on board entertainment program.

Meeting with environmental journalists in Burkina Faso (February 7)

Another highlight was a meeting with a group of young and enthusiastic environmental journalists in Burkina Faso, who have organized themselves in a small association called Media Vert. These journalists are working for radio, TV and press. They have visited farmer innovators in Burkina Faso and have subsequently been writing and talking about their findings. Steps are now being taken to link them to an emerging organization of African environmental journalists and to create opportunities for exposure to existing successes in natural resource management.  

The second person to the left is Mathieu Ouedraogo of Réseau MARP who took the initiative in the middle of 2012 to bring the journalists to the field as part of the IFAD funded project to support a national policy dialogue around re-greening.  

Never waste an opportunity to tell the story about re-greening and its multiple impacts

During the last few months, numerous opportunities have emerged to present re-greening and its multiple impacts on food security, resilience, household energy, adaptation to and mitigation of climate change to different audiences. Presentations included:

- a brown bag lunch presentation at the World Bank in Washington D.C USA (January 15)

- a presentation to the Washington DC chapter of the Society of American Foresters, a US based professional association that includes foresters and natural resource management specialists with a keen interest in agroforestry (January 17)

- presentation at the European Parliament in Brussels organized by the World Agroforestry Centre (January 29)

- at the World Bank during the Sustainable Development Network week (January 27)

- at the retreat of the World Bank’s Sahel and West Africa Program (January 28)

- at the Brussels development briefings organized by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) . CTA is a joint international institution of the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific States associated to the EU. (March 4). About 200 participants joined the development briefing on “Agricultural Resilience in the Face of Crisis and Shocks”

Brussels Development Briefings

What next?

From March 11 – 19, I’ll be visiting Senegal to meet with IED Afrique, another key re-greening partner. The visit will include meetings with a group of environmental journalists, parliamentarians for the environment and a field visit. The next update (end March) will be about the visit to Senegal and the spotlight will be on IED Afrique and its acivities to develop a national policy dialogue around re-greening in Senegal. In subsequent issues each ARI partner will share what they have done to put re-greening by farmers on the radar screen of national policymakers. The World Bank recently published a major report on “Turn down the heat: why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided”. The next update will also pay attention to the role of trees in turning down the heat. The point will be made that a significant increase in the world’s vegetation cover is vital to turning down the heat.

  If you have any suggestions for African Re-greening Initiatives, if you have information to share or if you would like to be part of the re-greening movement, or if you are willing to contribute financially to support re-greening by farmers, please contact: Chris Reij

November 2012: PATHWAYS TO SCALING RE-GREENING SUCCESSES IN AFRICA’S DRYLANDS

A delegation from Nigeria visits the village of Dan Saga (Aguié district, Niger) to draw lessons from Niger’s re-greening experience for agroforestry policy and practice in Nigeria. The delegation got some hands on training by the farmers in selection of stems and in pruning.

  Why is it important to scale existing farmer managed re-greening?

On-farm trees (agroforestry systems) are the pillar of future agriculture in Africa’s drylands and sub-humid regions, but this is also true for drylands in other parts of the world. They help smallholder farmers create more complex, more productive and drought-resilient farming systems. On-farm trees not only increase food security, but they also help farmers to adapt to climate change, produce more fodder for livestock and a wide range of other benefits (energy, nutrition, cash, medicinal produce). Increasing the number of on-farm trees is only a first essential step; more is needed to significantly increase crop yields for a rapidly growing population. A big advantage of on-farm trees is that they help maintain or improve soil organic matter, which makes it rational for farmers to begin using small quantities of inorganic fertilizers.

The pruning of Guiéra senegalensis (Niger, June 2012) produces significant quantities of leaves (soil organic matter) as well as branches and twigs (household energy).

This helps increase crop yields significantly. As farmers from the village of Dan Saga (Niger) explained during a workshop in Ouagadougou in June…”we are now systematically combining agroforestry and small quantities of inorganic fertilizers (micro dosing) and this allows us to harvest about 1000 kg/ha instead of about 500 kg/ha”.

If micro dosing could be introduced during the next 5 years on 1 million ha of existing agroforestry parklands in Niger, it would increase crop production by about 500,000 ton. Many smallholder farmers would become food secure and could even produce a surplus for the market. Before presenting the components of a scaling strategy, the question should be answered why it has taken 7 months to produce this new update? The answer is simple…there were a number of activities and promising developments, which contributed to postponing the writing of a new update.

Some promising developments

Expanding re-greening into Northern Nigeria

Early June, a 25 person strong delegation from Nigeria visited the Maradi and Zinder Regions in Niger to draw lessons from Niger’s experience with re-greening for agroforestry policy and practice in Nigeria (see pictures front page). This visit was co-organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Nigeria and ARI’s partners in Niger, in particular Prof. Adam Toudou and Dr. Abassé Tougiani. It was co-funded by IFAD and by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Parts of Northern Nigeria have high population densities and low on-farm tree densities, which means that this is a case of “low hanging fruit”. There is a potential for quickly expanding the number of on-farm trees through the protection of natural regeneration.

Before leaving Niger, all participants developed their own points of action. Upon return, several participants decided to try to develop on-the-ground activities. We’ll brief you in the next updates about developments.

A regional food and water initiative for the Sahel and the Horn of Africa

At the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) began on August 1 an intensive process of formulating a major regional food and water initiative for the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. The proposal will be submitted before the end of 2012 and, if approved, implementation will start early in 2013. The approach of this land user driven program will be to expand the scale of existing successes. Its technical components include agroforestry with an accent on farmer-managed re-greening, water harvesting, micro dosing (small quantities of inorganic fertilizers) and improved seeds. These technologies have often been promoted and used in isolation, but this program will integrate these activities as much as possible. The program proposal emphasizes the need for flexibility in order to be able to respond to emerging opportunities and it does not rigidly fix targets like conventional projects do, but it wants to develop a multi-stakeholder movement and a process. We’ll know soon whether the proposal will be accepted or rejected.

A movement is developing around farmer-managed re-greening

OXFAM NOVIB has decided to support the development of agroforestry in Senegal and in Niger. OXFAM America supports a major women’s credit and savings program in Mali with more than 400,000 members, who have identified the depletion of soil fertility as a main problem that can be tackled by increasing the number of on-farm trees.

World Vision Australia is increasing its support for farmer-managed re-greening and so do other World Vision countries, in particular after the successful “Beating the Famine” conference in Nairobi in April 2012 (see ARI update 2012 no.4).

As mentioned in earlier updates, IFAD is already supporting agroforestry in the Sahel and its project in Niger’s Aguié District is a source of inspiration. The World Bank TerrAfrica and the Global Environment Facility have put agroforestry/farmer-managed re-greening firmly on their agenda.

Slowly but surely, the interest in agroforestry is increasing, but more needs to be done to put agroforestry firmly on the global policy agenda’s

A workshop on the economic impacts of agroforestry systems in the Sahel

From 8 – 11 October re-greening partners from Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal met in Ouagadougou with ICRAF and its partners amongst others to discuss the first results of an ICRAF study funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and co-funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This study on the economic impacts of agroforestry systems in the Sahel is based on interviews with 1040 households in 4 countries. It indicates that agroforestry improves food security, but there are differences between each country. As soon as the report will be available, a next update will summarize the findings.

  Scaling existing re-greening successes: how do you do it?

This update does not offer space to go into details, but it is possible to briefly present 18 different components of a scaling strategy. A working paper will soon be published, which will treat each component in more detail. Most of these components are already used by re-greening partners in the Sahel, but they are also applicable in very different socioeconomic and agro-ecological situations, for instance in the USA, Brazil or India. The starting point is always the identification and analysis of smaller and bigger re-greening successes, which can be found in many places. Even in situations that seem to be bleak, it is always possible to find farmers and villages that have innovated to overcome a crisis. These successes can be used as sources of inspiration, training grounds and seed banks.

A. WORKING AT THE GRASSROOTS

1. Organize farmer-to-farmer visits

2. Farmer experts train farmers and herders

3. Support or develop village institutions

4. Introduce agroforestry competitions at different levels

5. Develop a movement of non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations and build their capacity to promote re-greening by farmers (men and women).

This cluster of activities shows that knowledge management is important. It’s about farmers sharing their knowledge and experience with other farmers, which is a widely used tool, and farmers with good knowledge and experience can train other farmers. The participants from the village of Dan Saga (Niger) in the above-mentioned workshop in Ouagadougou, mentioned that in their area 300 farmer experts (50% women) are now able to train other farmers in and outside Niger, and some already do so.

Re-greening is also about creating village institutions to manage the new capital asset: trees. Some villagers in Dan Saga have specific responsibilities for controlling whether everyone respects the rules that have been set by the community. (June 2012)

B. INVOLVE GOVERNMENT (TOP-DOWN MEETS BOTTOM-UP)

6. Adapt national agricultural policies and forestry legislation

7. Mainstream re-greening into existing and new agricultural development projects

8. Organize field visits for national policymakers

9. Create a Presidential Award for the best re-greening/agroforestry village

Developing a grassroots movement is important, but it’s not enough. National policies and forest legislation should be adapted to incentivize farmers to invest in trees. Unless farmers perceive ownership rights to their on-farm trees, they will be reluctant to invest in them. A draft national re-greening strategy or Niger proposes the creation of a Presidential Award for the best re-greening village. If that would be accepted, it can have a big impact. If the President decides to deliver the award personally, it will not only trigger a lot of attention from the national TV, radio and press, which helps spread the message about re-greening and its impacts, but it will also induce other villages to do better and join the competition.

C. DEVELOP A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

10. Use the mass media to inform farmers and herders

11. Link ICT, radio and internet (develop a “web of speech”)

12. Produce documentaries for national TV

13. Organize national and regional experience sharing workshops

14. Mobilize African champions to promote re-greening

15. Mobilize international media

16. Develop advocacy at all levels

Too few people in Africa’s drylands, but also in the rest of the world, are aware about what has already been achieved, the multiple impacts of re-greening and the crucial role on-farm and off-farm trees play in improving livelihoods and in adaption to and mitigation of climate change. Development of agroforestry and restoring degraded forests has to get much higher on the national and international political agenda than it currently is.

D. THE ROLE OF THE MARKET IN SCALING UP

17. Support the development of agroforestry value chains

18. Induce or support the private sector to develop input/output markets

National and international agroforestry value chains do already exist around some species like the Shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa) and baobab leaves harvested in Niger’s Mirriah district find their way to markets in Sudan and even in Saudi Arabia. A species that is on the rise in several countries, and has an untapped potential, is Moringa oleifera. It is also called the miracle tree, because of its considerable nutritional value. The picture below was taken in early June on the road between Niamey and Torodi (Niger). This zone has witnessed a big expansion of the area under Moringa oleifeira in the last few years.

Moringa oleifera is expanding rapidly along road between Niamey and Torodi (Niger). This picture was taken early June 2012. The lack of clarity is due to the quantities of fine soil particles in the air

Request The 18 components of the scaling strategy are neither perfect nor complete. If you have any questions, remarks or suggestions regarding the scaling strategy, please send them to Chris Reij .

Media attention for re-greening Re-greening successes continue to generate media attention. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in the USA made a documentary in Niger end May/early June 2012 about the famine, but it also wanted to show the solutions and it showed the increasing on-farm tree densities in Maradi’s Aguié. It’s a nicely balanced story, which they gave the following title: “Amidst drought and famine Niger leads West Africa in addressing crisis”.

This documentary was broadcasted across the USA by PBS Newshour.

Some re-greening partners in action IED Afrique in Senegal One of the key activities of IED Afrique is informing a network of environmental journalists in Senegal about re-greening. From 26 – 28 November about 20 journalists are visiting the region of Kaolack and to visit areas re-greened, discuss with farmers who have protected and managed trees, which regenerate spontaneously on their farms. Read more about this workshop and visit in the article published on Agence de Presse Sénégalaise. Besides Mamadou Fall, the re-greening coordinator of IED Afrique, a number of researchers from the National Agronomic Research Institute who have done research on yield impacts of re-greening accompany the environmental journalists.

This kind of activity is vital to get re-greening on the radar screen of a wider public and of national policy makers. It should be mentioned here that IED Afrique is collaborating closely with World Vision Senegal and other NGOs.

Reseau MARP in Burkina Faso

In July, the Reseau MARP organized a visit for national policymakers of three ministries to farmer innovators in the Zondoma and Yatenga provinces. It is important to expose policymakers to the innovations by farmers and to what’s happening on the ground. The delegation was accompanied by the press and radio, which triggered a flurry of media attention.

CRESA in Niger

As mentioned earlier in this update, our re-greening partners in Niger were actively involved in organizing a study visit by a major delegation from Nigeria to Southern Niger. Besides this, a number of studies on re-greening have been realized and a draft national agroforestry strategy has been developed, which remains to be discussed in a workshop. In the meantime, this draft strategy has been shared with the re-greening partners in the other Sahel countries, and they want to explore which parts of this strategy are relevant to the specific conditions in their countries.

SahelECO, Network Institute and World-Wide Web Foundation

SahelECO is working closely with Network Institute of Free University Amsterdam and with the World Wide Web Foundation on testing and implementing a so-called “ web of speech”, which is based on linking mobile phone and community radio. Rural communities lack access to electricity and have no access to the Internet. Communication is also hampered by the variety of small local African languages and dialects spoken in each region. The services are designed for those without Internet. The services are based on speech (in local languages) for those without reading skills. A radio platform is accessible by phone for farmers and rural “village reporters”. The interactivity that is thus generated, (“web of radios”) gives a voice to those communities and individuals who were previously not able to express their voices. You can learn more about this initiative by watching this short documentary.

The partners are working with community (rural) radios and farmer organizations for the deployment of these systems, in a co-creation setting with the local users (farmers!), to ensure they are optimized for the local rural conditions in Africa. The systems have extensively been tested in a production environment in Mali by all partners in cooperation with 6 radio stations.

Some final remarks about extreme weather conditions

In 2011, rainfall was bad in parts of the Sahel and millions of people suffered from hunger and malnutrition. The 2012 rainy season fortunately saw record rainfall and a bumper harvest.

17 states in the USA suffered this year from prolonged drought, which led to lower maize yields in states like Iowa and Kansas and a sell-off of livestock.

Early November, the Northeastern part of the USA was struck by hurricane Sandy, which caused devastation at a vast scale. In 2011, Mark Hertsgaard, a US environmental journalist, published a book called “Hot: living through the next 50 years on earth”. He quotes mayor Bloomberg who declared on Earth Day 2007 that coping with climate change was imperative to New York’s future and “he felt that New York was threatened by “ rising sea levels and intensifying storms”. Hertsgaard explores the city and its vulnerability to extreme weather events and what he describes almost exactly what happened early November (Hertsgaard, 2011: 97 – 104). In 2010, climatologist Heidi Cullen wrote a book called “The weather of the future: heat waves, extreme storms, and other scenes from a climate-changed planet”. She dedicated a full chapter to New York City (227 – 259), predicts correctly what happened and looks at the future.

In her book she also makes a forecast for the Sahel Re-greening Initiative in 2015 and in 2022 (p. 81-82). Her forecast for 2015 is that “through support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and OXFAM America, the re-greening initiative has spread across the Sahel”. Well…let’s hope this promising forecast will come true. Our re-greening partners don’t have the financial resources to meet the demands for expansion of activities to other provinces or districts.

The next update

The next update will be published end January 2013, or sooner in case there is a good reason to do so. The accent in that update will be on information about on-the-ground activities by field partners and about the Web Alliance for Re-greening in Africa.

An agroforestry parkland just south of Arba Minch in Ethiopia, which is dominated by Moringa stenotepala

ARI UPDATE 2012 NO.4 BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS FOR REGREENING IN AFRICA

The latest update mentioned that the Kantche district in Niger, which has a high population density and high on-farm tree densities, produced a grain surplus of almost 14.000 tons in 2011. This is lower than in preceding years, but still of interest. It appears that also the region around Bankass in Mali, which has a vast young agroforestry parkland, has produced a grain surplus in 2011. The figure mentioned is 50,000 tons. It remains to be verified, but any surplus in 2011 is good. It goes without saying that despite an overall surplus in a region, many families will experience hardship in 2012. Nevertheless, these examples are bright spots in a situation in the Sahel characterized by major cereal deficits. Question is…can these surpluses be attributed to the new agroforestry parkland? It’s a question to be explored, but it is likely.

The Beating the Famine Conference in Nairobi (10 – 13 April 2012) This conference was organized jointly by World Vision and the World Agroforestry Center. The almost 200 participants (development workers, policymakers, researchers, journalists) assessed the current experience with farmer-managed regreening, looked at the multiple impacts of regreening and got some practical training in how to prune. The participants came from Kenya, Uganda (including the Ministers of Agriculture and of Planning), Ethiopia, Tanzania, Niger, Tchad, Puntland….. Many journalists from the region interviewed participants and the “Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen” (Second German TV channel) had a short item in its evening news about the conference. Information about the conference can be found at www.beatingfamine.com An informal partnership to promote re-greening On Saturday 14 April a number of people, representing the World Agroforestry Centre, African Forest Forum, World Resources Institute, World Vision Australia, Center for International Cooperation Free University Amsterdam, met to discuss the conference and its follow up and they established an informal partnership pledging to work together to promote re-greening in order to develop an Evergreen Agriculture in Africa. One of the drivers is the growing awareness that a dangerous scenario is now unfolding in parts of Africa, which may lead to structural famine in the next decade. This point has been made in earlier updates….soil fertility is depleting in many areas, rainfall is becoming more erratic and more extreme, more long dry spells occur during the rainy season. In combination, these trends are depressing crop yields in a context of often rapid demographic growth. At the same time, cereal prices are reaching record highs again, which creates hardship for the urban poor, but also for small farmers who do not produce enough to cover family food needs. The world food stocks are low, which means it cannot be taken for granted that food deficits can be covered by food aid. “Business-as-usual “is no longer an option. The informal partnership discussed a mix of measures for sustainable intensification, comprising the building of new agroforestry systems through farmer-managed regreening, the introduction of simple water harvesting techniques in semi-arid regions (400 – 800 mm rainfall), which increase the quantities of water available to crops and to trees, and the use of small quantities of inorganic fertilizers ideally in those situations where agroforestry has already increased the quantity of organic matter in the topsoil. The efficiency of fertilizer use is determined by the soil organic matter content (SOM), which also has a positive impact on the water holding capacity of the soil. Let’s briefly present here those who participated in this meeting.

Roland Bunch is an agro ecologist and author of “Two Ears of Corn: A Guide to People-Centered Agricultural Improvement”. He has served as Head of the Department of Rural Development at the Pan-American Agricultural School of Honduras, as the Director of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods for World Neighbors, a US-based NGO working in integrated rural development and as Co-Founder and former Coordinator of COSECHA (Association of Consultants for a Sustainable, Ecological and People-Centered Agriculture) in Honduras. He has consulted widely in three continents and is renowned for promoting sustainable, "people-centered" agriculture, including "farmer-to-farmer extension" and "participatory technology development" methodologies.

Dennis Garrity is Distinguished Board Research Fellow and former Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre. He has recently been designated as UNCCD Drylands Ambassador, and is involved in a global effort examine unconventional ways of creating more productive and environmentally sound farming systems. He chairs the Steering Committee for Landcare International, was previously the Regional Coordinator of the Southeast Asia Programme of the World Agroforestry Centre (Bogor, Indonesia) and was agronomist and Head of the Agroecology Unit at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. He has a Ph.D. in crop physiology (University of Nebraska).

Larwanou Mahamane is Senior Programme Officer at African Forest Forum. Formerly a research scientist in the Forestry Department at “Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique du Niger” (INRAN), he joined the University of Niamey as a lecturer and research scientist in 2006. In Niger he conducted research in forestry and agroforestry, developing agroforestry technologies for improving parkland systems in the Sahel. He has published many articles in peer reviewed journals and coordinated many scientific collaborative projects. Dr Larwanou obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Forest Ecology/Agroforestry (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) and his Ph.D. (University Abdou Moumouni of Niamey) in 2005.

Chris Reij is a Sustainable Land Management specialist of the Centre for International Cooperation, VU University Amsterdam and a Senior Fellow of the World Resources Institute in Washington. He works in Africa since 1978 and is currently facilitator of “African Re-greening Initiatives”, which supports farmers to adapt to climate change and to develop more productive and sustainable farming systems. The approach of this initiative is to expand the scale of existing successes in re-greening (agroforestry, participatory forest management) by individual farmers and communities.

Tony Rinaudo interviewed by the press during the Beating the Famine conference

Tony Rinaudo is involved in the development and promotion of agricultural-forestry-pastoral systems across a range of environments. Tony previously spent 18 years in Niger (1980 – 1998) managing a long term agricultural development program and he catalyzed the process of re-greening in Niger’s Maradi Region in 1985. He has recently given training courses in farmer-managed re-greening in Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia and East Timor.

Robert Winterbottom is Director Ecosystem Services at the World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, D.C. He has worked in reforestation in Burkina Faso; desertification control planning with the Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS); institutional strengthening for improved coordination of natural resource management (NRM) in Niger; community-based NRM in Namibia; integrating environmental governance and poverty reduction through natural resource based enterprise development in Senegal and Bangladesh; assessing needs and opportunities for climate change adaptation in Madagascar and Vietnam and in preparing the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (World Bank, UNDP, FAO and WRI). He earned a M.Sc. (Forest Science) from Yale University. We will create opportunities to jointly design projects and programs. The individuals mentioned above agreed to form an informal partnership, but the regreening movement is much bigger. Let’s present a few more partners.

Assefa Tofu is the NRM advisor of World Vision Ethiopia (WVE) and a driving force behind WVE’s regreening activities. The picture shows Assefa Tofu giving conference participants some hands on training in selecting stems for removal and in pruning.

Abasse Tougiani , who is a researcher attached to Niger’s National Agricultural Research Institute, has been based for many years in Maradi where he cooperated closely with Tony Rinaudo and with the IFAD-funded project in Aguié, which is successfully promoting regreening by farmers.

Gray Tappan of the US Geological Survey’s EROS (Earth Resources Observation and Science) Center in South Dakota is a geographer who specialized in remote sensing of land use and vegetation. He made and continues to make invaluable contributions to our understanding of long term changes in vegetation. The satellite images Gray has provided of the same villages for different periods have helped convince many people that parts of the Sahel are now greener than 20 – 30 years ago.

Mathieu Ouedraogo (on the left) is the regreening coordinator of African Regreening Initiatives in Burkina Faso. He began his career in the early 1980s when working for the OXFAM-funded Agroforestry Project in the Yatenga region, which was one of the most innovative water harvesting projects. On the right prof. Adam Toudou, regreening coordinator in Niger, dean of the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Niamey.

Mary Allen Ballo is an environmental scientist by training, executive secretary of SahelECO, and ARI regreening coordinator. She has worked for more than two decades in Mali and has made SahelECO one of the leading environmental NGOs of the country. These are just some of the regreening champions. In future updates some more partners/champions will be shown. The next ARI update will be published either just before the visit by a delegation from Nigeria to Southern Niger (June 4 – 7) or shortly after it. Recent French updates can be found on: www.reverdir-afrique.com