For many people, the importing of tomatoes is probably not a topic of great fascination. But then, they're not Sylvestre Fandohan. This Beninese agricultural engineer sees in his country's consumption of tomatoes from neighbouring Burkina Faso an indictment of poor natural resource management by the Cotonou government and its citizens. As national co-ordinator of the Conservation and Natural Resource Management Programme (Programme de conservation et de gestion des ressources naturelles, ProCGRN), a joint Beninese-German initiative mainly carried out in the north-western Atacora and Donga regions, he is also working to change this state of affairs.
Recently, Fandohan sat down with Michée Boko to discuss ProCGRN, which got underway in January 2004 and is scheduled to wrap up in December 2014; the project aims to help communities make better use of natural resources, to increase their income. Ultimately, it also works to fight desertification in Benin.
Q : What agricultural practices have you come across that are bad for the land, but which subsistence farmers persist in carrying out?
A : For example, farmers create large mounds to grow yams, often in low-lying areas that they could use to produce rice, for instance, helping to conserve water and land. The cultivation of yams is also very destructive for natural resources. It's land-extensive, slash-and-burn farming. It's a crop that is always raised on cleared land,abandoned after three years, at most, for new bush land. People set fire to the bush on this new land to clear, and late in the dry season intead of earlier as we often advise them. Late fires severely degrade the soil and kill animals and plants.
Other dangerous practices are uncontrolled forest exploitation, especially of timber, with chainsaws; tools which are banned because they enable an exploitation that is too rapid and that leads to wastage of wood. This also compromises good management of natural resources, and is a factor in "Sahelisation" and ultimately desertification.
Q : Are you saying that natural resources in Benin are under threat?
A : Absolutely! Benin has fine laws that protect the environment and natural resources, but they are not implemented at all, or are poorly implemented. Unfortunately, Benin has not yet developed all the instruments of good governance that are necessary for resources to be better managed. Today, people exploit what they want, as they want, with assistance from all ranks of forestry officials.There are people who export forest products of Benin and pass them off as products of Togo or Nigeria.
Taking Burkina (Faso) as an example, I would say that in the area of water resource management, Benin is considerably behind some neighbouring countries. Benin has more water than Burkina, but it consumes many tomatoes from Burkina Faso, which is a dry, Sahelian country. This is strange and shameful, as compared to Burkina, Benin is better endowed by nature. That we do not know how to manage these resources better than people who are less endowed by nature, I find very serious. It's very important for us, as Benin is an agricultural country; making water available in all seasons is a fight that we must continue to wage. This could solve many of the problems concerning pressure on natural resources and desertification.
IPS News
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