United by a joint challenge, Trees & Life partners combine to improve climate and living conditions and explore the way to a new economy.
The project manager : Mozdahir Développement
In a country where rural areas are emptying of their lifeblood, Mozdahir Development relies on solidarity so that the people regain their taste for the soil and their sense of pride from their natural heritage.
Mozdahir Development is a non-governmental organization, established in 2000 by the son of a great family from Casamance: Cherif Mohamed Aly Aidara. This region in the south of the country, one of the poorest in Senegal, suffers from massive rural exodus. Aware, from childhood, of his country’s difficulties, Cherif Mohamed Ali Aidara has made it his mission to restore farmers’ confidence in their future in the villages.
Considered an exception among the Senegalese associations, Mozdahir Development is very widely recognized among the populations as well as by authorities all over the country and it has managed to raise funds and mobilize volunteers within Senegal itself in order to promote:
replanting of trees in villages spread out around the community-managed forests;
creation of about 12 schools in very poor regions where people are wary of the regional education authority;
construction of a pilot village entirely built using green architecture techniques;
training of about 100 farmers and craftsmen;
creation of farmers’ cooperatives around approximately 100 hectares of banana plantations and market gardening plots, farmed with organic methods.
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Local partners
The Forestry Commission of Senegal, a division of the Senegalese Ministry of the Environment, was created in 1935 to restore and protect forestry resources against bushfires, clearing and excessive exploitation. It is present throughout the country in all 6 eco-geographic zones with over 30 programmes in association with the local populations and authorities. The reforestation programme of The Forestry Commission of Senegal relies on a dense network of nurseries and technicians to achieve the reforestation of several million trees per year.
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Created in 2002, Senegalese Integrated Ecosystem Management Programme (PGIES) is an independent Public Agency with the aim of setting up integrated long-term projects enabling Senegalese rural communities to grow while preserving and regenerating the ecosystems that sustain their development. For the past 7 years, the innovative techniques implemented by PGIES have been proving their worth. It currently manages in a sustainable way more than 500,000 hectares of sensitive ecosystems in Senegal in 4 eco-regions, mainly in Upper Casamance.
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The vision of integrated sustainable development at village level, which emerged during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, inspired President of Senegal Abdulaye Wade in his decision to launch the Ecovillages programme in the rural zones of the country. The National Ecovillages Agency, an ad hoc agency, was thus created by Presidential decree on 12 August 2008.
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The ISRA is a Scientific Applied Research Institute. Set up in 1974, this public Institute initiates research relating to the Senegalese rural sector aimed at the food security of populations and their local development. The ISRA works particularly on new energy vegetable productions (jatropha curcas, pongamia) and on the improvement of quality and productivity in fruit trees.
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The University has a scientific chair dedicated to the south-eastern regions of Senegal. Every year, about 70 students go into postgraduate research in this chair and their research focuses on the Southeast of the country. Their main skills include diagnosis and socioeconomic monitoring of these regions’ populations, as well as cartography of human activities.
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Identification of local Partners of Trees&Life programme in other countries is in progress.
Global partners
The Global Cooling Project is a theory that originated with a consortium of British climatologists and hydrologists whose research was focused on the interactions between water cycle, forests and climate. This theory upholds that the restoration of the vegetable cover, associated with its protection and with rainwater harvesting, has the distinctive effect of modifying the climate by progressive cooling.
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Based in France, the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE) is one of the most widely recognized laboratories for the study of climate and especially of climate change. It plays a major part in the context of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in which many of its researchers participate. It is very diversified since among them can be found modellers as well as bench scientists, glaciologists and specialists of space remote-sensing or of the study of air quality.
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Read more on : Mozdahir Developement
In partnership with more than 20 rural communities in Casamance, Mozdahir Development is the project manager of Kinomé’s first project of the Trees&Life programme. Mozdahir Development is in charge of implementing the Trees&Life project in Upper Casamance. A project team has been engaged and is carrying out permanent reporting with the Kinomé teams in Paris. Thanks to Mozdahir Development, Trees&Life Senegal is "set up" according to local needs. Mozdahir Development proven capacity for mobilizing and listening to communities ensures the appropriation of the project by local communities.
Read more on : Forestry Commission of Senegal
The Forestry Commission of Senegal, especially the regional unit of Vélingara, provides its support to the TreesLife project, for the production of quality tree seedlings and also valuable technical help by making available their logistical means (technicians, monitoring tools, vehicles, etc.).
Read more on : Senegalese Integrated Ecosystem Management Programme
The Senegalese Integrated Ecosystem Management Programme makes available to Trees&Life its tools for community management of the Senegalese forests (principle of Community-based Forest, system for guaranteeing the survival of the planted trees and setting-up of alternatives to deforestation). Like the Forestry Commission of Senegal, the Senegalese Integrated Ecosystem Management Programme also provides its support to the Trees&Life project for the production of quality tree seedlings.
Read more on : National Ecovillages Agency
The principle of an ecovillage lies in restoring a better balance for the human being in harmony with the environment and with respect for the surrounding ecosystems. Participative reforestation is one of The National Ecovillages Agency’s action points, in line with the vision developed in the Trees&Life project. Thanks to existing synergies between Trees&Life and The National Ecovillages Agency, Trees&Life is able to benefit, among others, from the political and institutional support of the Senegalese government.
Read more on : Agricultural Research Institute of Senegal
The Agricultural Research Institute of Senegal assists Trees&Life in the development and monitoring of improved and sustainable techniques for trees exploitation, especially for planted fruit trees.
Read more on : University Cheick Anta Diop of Dakar, Geography Department
Doctoral Students, supervised by the University, carry out implementation, diagnosis and monitoring of the socioeconomic indicators of Trees&Life.
Read more on : The Global Cooling Project
The Trees&Life programme was chosen to be the experimental field in real conditions for the theory of the Global Cooling Project and to demonstrate the climatic and environmental impacts of the restoration of ecosystems.
Read more on : Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences
Equipped with robust prediction models, the LSCE will provide support to the Trees&Life programme in its experimental set-up for demonstrating the climatic and environmental impacts of the restoration of ecosystems.
