The Republic of Benin is situated in West Africa, with a surface area of 112,622 km2 and a population of approximately 6.8 million inhabitants. As of 2002, approximately 61 percent of Benin’s inhabitants lived in rural areas. Forests and wooded lands cover approximately 6.2 million hectares, or about half of the usable lands. Protected areas (including national parks and hunting areas) cover 2.6 million hectares, or about 24 percent of the national area.
Many environmental problems were identified at the local level. To address these challenges, Benin adopted various participatory approaches to involve communities in environmental and natural resource management. The new context of decentralization enabled the Government to adopt these participatory approaches.
The legal framework for decentralization is laid out in two laws: Article 20(2) of Law 97-028 of Jan. 15, 1999 on the organization of the territorial administration of Benin, and Article 94(1) of Law 97-029 of Jan. 15, 1999 on the organization of municipalities in Benin). These provisions make municipalities (i.e., local governments) and the local populations the main actors in implementing and applying MEAs. Following are two examples of decentralized implementation of MEAs in Benin.
Combating Desertification
In fighting desertification, local populations play an important role, especially with respect to land use decisions. Accordingly, Benin created local committees to combat desertification. These local committees coordinate the actions of villages with respect to desertification. Similarly, municipal committees coordinate the desertification-related actions of municipalities.
Every year, wild fires and forest fires significantly affect broad areas of land. To prevent and minimize the harm from these fires, youth groups were established in villages to fight fires. They are responsible for raising public awareness in the villages during each dry season regarding the dangers of fire and also to put out fires that do occur during this period. These groups receive materials from governmental bodies, NGOs, and development partners.
Sustainable management of forests is another key element of the fight against desertification. Toward this end, Benin has initiated the participatory management of forests. In particular, local communities are now managing 14,000 hectares of teak forest through the Participatory Forest Management Committees (known by their acronym in French, COGEPAF). The communities in these committees participate in activities relating to the planting, management, cleaning, and protecting of the teak plantations. This includes protecting the trees from theft and fire.
In exchange for their efforts to manage and protect the teak forests, the COGEPAFs receive a portion of the harvested timber, which they can sell (and keep the proceeds of those sales). The individual persons who participate in the management of the teak forests receive 84 percent of the proceeds of the sale, with the remaining 16 percent going to the community to use for infrastructure development within the community (e.g., schools, health clinics, wells, or water sources). This community-based approach to managing teak forests is currently being pursued in the forests of Lama, Toffo, Agrimey, and Djigbé.
Conserving Biological Diversity
To ensure the sustainable management of national parks (including Pendjari Park and W of Niger Park), Benin has initiated an approach of co-managing the parks and their resources with local communities. Through these programmes, the communities are considered as partners. The communities participate through their organization, the Villagers’ Association for the Management of Wildlife Reserves (known by its acronym in French, AVIGREF). The different AVIGREFs came together to form a union. Working with the National Centre for Management of Wildlife Reserves (known by its acronym in French, CENAGREF), a state structure, the union of AVIGREF leads activities relating to surveillance, management, awareness raising, conservation, and use. Income from the use of these Resources is distributed between the state and the communities, with 70 percent going to CENAGREF and 30 percent to the AVIGREFs. Communities use these funds to support to infrastructure development within their communities (schools, health clinics, wells, etc.). In 2005, the union of the AVIGREFs received a total of CFA35 million (approximately US$70,000) for tourism- and hunting-related activities.
Benefits of Decentralization and Participatory Management
The different participatory and decentralized approaches to implementing MEAs in Benin have yielded positive results to the environment while also fighting poverty. The organization of communities to fight wildfires and forest fires has reduced the areas that were burned every year. Similarly, considerably fewer people have died in these fires since the start of the community organizations. Accordingly, villagers have seen more cashew trees (Anacardium occidental) growing and the harvests are better protected. In national parks, poaching has decreased, revenues have increased, and communities have used revenues to build necessary infrastructure. The communities that were involved in managing the teak forests have similarly received revenues that they have used to build community infrastructure works (including the installation of a telephone network in some communities). From an environmental perspective, the forests are better protected against theft and fire.
For more information on decentralization generally, see http://www.mehubenin.net or contact cbbes_ong2002@yahoo.fr