The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: February 17, 1998

Author: Papa Ousmane Camara, University of Conakry

Analysis of nutritional practicies of the communities in Upper Niger National Park

This case study was conducted in the Republic of Guinea in Western Africa. It concerns the Upper Niger National Park Project [Projet du Parc National du Haut Niger - PNHN], located in the midwestern area of Upper Guinea, covering a 65,000-ha area located in the prefectures of Faranah, Kouroussa and Dabola. The park project area consists of a forest complex comprising the classified forests of Mafour (52,400 ha), Amana (19,800 ha), and Tamba (15,900 ha).

The principal objective of the study was to collect and analyze a maximum of pertinent information on the dietary habits of the communities involved in management of the park area, with a view to proposing an appropriate natural resource protection and conservation strategy that would take into account the dietary needs of the populations concerned.

Set up in 1994, under an agreement between the Government of Guinea and the European Development Fund, Upper Niger National Park falls within a regional program to develop the watersheds of Upper Niger and Upper Gambia. This program was designed with reference to the policy guidelines established by the European Council of Milan in 1985 for the control of desertification and other natural calamities occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The objective of the park (project) is to regulate the Niger River by introducing a strategy for natural resource conservation and management in the forest complex of which the Mafour classified forest is the core. Specifically, its aims are to:

• Safeguard and manage protected areas.

• Sensitize and train the rural inhabitants, enabling them to diversify and increase their sources of income and thereby raise their standards of living.

The park falls within the new generation of land areas managed by the local communities.

To achieve this objective, the PNHN has identified a number of priority activities, with scientific research high on the list.

The present study was prepared with an eye to the project's impact on the living conditions of the inhabitants of the park area, focusing in particular on their dietary behaviors.

The decision to create the PNHN was taken following numerous studies of the Mafour classified forest and its surrounding areas. This study process, initiated in 1988, revealed:

• Massive destruction of flora, due principally to uncontrolled brush fires, cultivation of stubble-burned fields, and disorganized lumbering activities.

• Extended low-water periods in the rivers, and gradual reduction in rainfall? resulting from degradation of the plant cover.

• Systematic decimation of local fauna.

• A glaring absence of any classified-forest protection organization.

• The lack of an appropriate national policy for the management of renewable resources.

The tangible consequences of this situation include the gradual impoverishment of arable soils, desertification, undernourishment and malnutrition of the local communities, and the disappearance of fauna.

Within the framework of the 1985-1987 economic and financial program, the Government of the Second Republic took note of this situation and analyzed the existing constraints.

In 1987, to solve the problems affecting economic development and remove the obstacles to its widespread expansion, the Government introduced a program overhauling the main thrusts of its sectoral approach and gradually formulating a new policy designed to maximize the benefits of development through the rational management of natural potential. Watershed protection was high on the list of priorities identified as a means of achieving those objectives..

The decision to create the PNHN was taken by the national authorities after several studies of watersheds and classified forests had been carried out, all of which revealed a need to seek ways and means of achieving rational management of natural resources, given the massive destruction to which those resources were subject. The principal stakeholders, namely the Government, the donors, and the local communities, have participated actively in all phases of the project.

A study and analysis of the data gathered in the field made it possible to:

• Acquire pertinent information on the nutritional practices of the population of the PNHN area and on land management, in particular the various forms of tenure and methods of transfer.

• Become aware of the level of productivity achieved through use of existing farming methods and instruments, and of their negative impact on the environment.

• Assess the extent of enforcement of the laws concerning land, forest, and river management.

• Identify the major constraints affecting communities in their socioeconomic activities.

• Formulate recommendations for appropriate management of the PNHN in light of the food requirements of the area's inhabitants.

The following lessons have been learned from the analysis of nutritional practices of the inhabitants of the PNHN area:

• The PNHN area has certain indisputable economic advantages: rich flora, abundant fauna, availability of fertile soils, motivation on the part of the local inhabitants to increase their productivity, existence of two urban communes and of accessible villages, and a sizable human potential (40,000 inhabitants).

• For some years, this area has received assistance from several supporting agencies in the form of provision of community infrastructure (wells, schools, rural tracks, health posts), sensitization, and rural extension services. All of this has led to a relative improvement in agricultural productivity levels.

• Agriculture, the principal occupation of the local population, remains a subsistence activity, owing to the unreliability of the instruments and methods used and the many, in some cases critical, problems plaguing the sector.

• Some of these problems, in particular underequipment and a shortage of agricultural inputs, cannot be solved by the communities alone. The chief constraint is the persistence of traditional behaviors that forestall any attempts at innovation.

An analysis of these various aspects points up the need to design and propose a food strategy that will facilitate achievement of the PNHN's fundamental objectives, particularly natural resource protection and conservation, while also improving the living conditions of the local communities. This strategy will need to give priority to the development of foodcrop, particularly rice, production. It will need to involve the communities at all stages of conception and application of the decisions that concern them. It could be based on the following priorities: training of local inhabitants, training of extension workers in appropriate extension methods, integration of young people, creation of grain banks, development of small-livestock breeding, fish farming, and the supply of agricultural inputs.

The universal nature of the case presented lies in the fact that it raises the issue of management of natural resources, the massive destruction of which can have negative consequences affecting all of national life (soil degradation, deforestation, dried-up water courses, desertification, famine).