Central River Division Forestry Project
Janjangbureh (Georgetown), The Gambia, West Africa
The formerly thick forests of The Gambia have been degrading during the last century because of large - scale destruction through bushfires and exploitation of forest resources. The result is a clear decline in the quality of the national forests, as 43% of the total land area is forestland, but 78% of these belong to the degraded tree and shrub savannah category, stated by the National Forest Inventory of 1998. Because of this development, the Government reacted in the early eighties in the Western parts of the country through the Gambian - German Forestry Project, and in 1996, a forestry project was started in the Central River Division of The Gambia. During the first project phase an important step was taken to implement a sustainable natural forest management system and to introduce Community Forestry in the Division. The second phase, which started in May 2001, aims at the consolidation of the achievements of the first phase and at a broader implementation of a sustainable management of the divisional forests. The Project will be implemented during a five years’ period concerning the technical cooperation, i.e. till April 2006; the financial cooperation will last for four years, i.e. until April 2005.
About 50.000 people, neighboring the State Forests and Community Forests, are benefiting from the project activities. Herdsmen can graze their cattle close to their villages within designated pastureland, while the search for firewood is facilitated for the women, as well as their possibility to utilize other forest products of the near State Forests.
Woman collecting firewood
The bilateral cooperation
is taking place between the Gambian and the German government. While
the executing agency is the Gambian Forestry Department,
on behalf of the Department of State for Fisheries, Natural Resources
and the Environment, the German Federal Ministry for Economic cooperation
(BMZ) is acting through the German Kreditanstalt
für Wiederaufbau (KfW) for the financial assistance and the
German Agency for Technical Cooperation
(GTZ) for the technical assistance. The Deutsche
Forstservice GmbH (DFS) is the commissioned consulting agency.
The overall objective
of the Central River Division Forestry Project aims at obtaining
a sustainable management of the Gambian natural forest resources in close
participation with the local communities. To achieve this overall goal,
the following objectives have been set up:
-
Sustainable management of Community Forests (CF) by the communities
-
Joint management of all Forest Parks (JFPM) by Forest Department and adjacent communities
- Development and implementation
of an appropriate Bushfire Management concept
- Initiation of income-generating
activities to contribute to poverty alleviation by using Marketing
Analysis and Development (MA&D) tools of thebFAO
- Environmental sensitisation
of the local population by using national Media
- Adequate management capacities
of the divisional forestry staff
- Well established and operational
physical infrastructure of the forestry service
- Improvement and expansion of the implementation of the Gambian Forest Management Concept (GFMC)
In addition to these activities in CRD, the project has also the mandate to advise the Gambian Government on further development of the forest policy and Legislation.
The early nineties have to be seen as the beginning of the participatory forest management approach in The Gambia. By that time, the Forestry Department and the Gambian – German Forestry Project had reached the conviction that the population has to be included in the management of the Gambian forests.
| 1991 |
|
| 1995 |
|
| 1998 |
|
| 2000 |
|
| 2002 |
|
The actual state of the Gambian Forest Policy and legal framework is exceptional in its aim of ownership transfer and thus enabling sustainable forest management. With this policy, the Gambian Government demonstrates a very far-sighted approach to forest management, in its kind unique within Western Africa.
