European Tropical Forest Research Network

Rehabilitation of degraded lands in Sub-Saharan Africa

Discusion summary: Causes/Drivers of Degradation of Land and Forests Drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa

The synthesis below includes the discussion paper and the direct response to it.

There are many factors, but the main ones are:

• Poverty and food insecurity - food production and income of the people in the drylands is low and in many places, conditions precipitated by low rainfall and concomitant productivity of the drylands. There is therefore high dependence on natural resources (including forests and woodlands) for survival. Examples include charcoal extraction and forest grazing. The pressure on these resources is growing against a background of declining capacity of the resources to sustain them.
• Inappropriate land use practices - with increasing populations and associated land shortages in the agriculturally more favourable highlands, there is considerable migration to the drylands and conversion of drylands into croplands, often rain-fed but irrigated in some cases. Design of most irrigation systems has also gone wrong. This conversion is probably the main cause of deforestation of dryland forests and degradation of ecosystems.
• Poor market access - market for livestock (the main economic activity of people in the drylands) is poor particularly among the pastoral communities.
• Declining rainfall; the average rainfall across the Sahel has for instance diminished by 30% since the 70's. The causes of this are not known but global warming is a strong probability. This factor combined with high pressure due to grazing, wood extraction and cultivation makes regeneration of the ecosystem difficult.
• Lack of individual and community ownership of natural resources -state ownership and management of forests is common all over sub Sahara Africa. Pre-independence state forest codes are still in practice in many countries. Community participation in their management is limited. Land tenure is poor and individual ownership is often lacking. Conflicts over use of resources are also common and contribute to degradation of forest in all drylands. Other driving factors of land degradation include:
  • Inadequate investment in Research and Development of drylands natural resources;
  • Poor information flow and networking between and among Research and Development institution in the drylands.

The ecological carrying capacity of drylands has been declining to unsustainable levels as a result of increasing human and livestock populations. At the same time the claim that the communities inhabiting drylands are poor was seen to be questionable in relation to the livestock economy. The herd sizes might have declined as a consequence of constrained access to grazing land, but the value of stocks could place such households way above the conventional "poverty line". The multidimensional nature of poverty, the variability of vulnerability of livelihoods in drylands and the strong linkage between resource tenure/control and entitlement of resident populations calls for answers to the question: So who are the poor in the drylands?

Concerning the ownership of natural resources, it is noted that during the last ten years, efforts have been made to formulate new forest policies and related legislation in most countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. The Southern Africa countries seem to have a lead position in this. In East Africa, Tanzania and Uganda are advanced; Ethiopia and Kenya follow behind. The new policies and legislation encourage integration of communities in ownership and control of forest resources. Different names are used to refer to these new institutional arrangements such as Joint Forest Management, Collaborative Forest Management, Participatory Forest Management and Collaborative Natural Resources Management. The new resource management approaches aim at creating institutional designs that can enable harmonious integration of forest resources management goals of the state and communities. The challenge at hand is: Can the participatory approaches be effective in situations of high population, high vulnerability of both the environment and human/livestock population, perpetual/apparent and deep poverty and constrained livelihood support opportunities?