Handing resource management back to local councillors in Senegal
Laurence Boutinot, boutinot@cirad.fr and/or boutinot@ird.sn
Forest Resources and Public Policy Research Unit CIRAD, French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, 05 September 2006
Forest resource management in Senegal is highly dysfunctional. This was revealed by the results of a two-year study of decentralized management and the economics of the charcoal supply chain.
With 80 000 ha of forest cover cleared each year, including 30 000 ha to produce charcoal, Senegal has lost half of its forest in 20 years. Nowadays, its forest resource, which covers just 25% of the country, is continuing to shrink as a result of numerous factors, including a severe drought, which lasted for three decades up to the late 1990s. Is this catastrophic vision a consequence of climatic factors alone, of an uncontrollable increase in demand from urban areas, or of bad management at national level?