Tony Rinaudo https://fmnrhub.com.au/ has given the same presentation workshop in 27 countries....FMNR. Tony lived in Niger for 17 years and spent $2 million for his budget through WorldVision.
Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration. Through thinning and pruning, the farmer leaves five stems. Year one:
Every year he removes one stem and it grows back while letting the middle stem grow bigger. In the 2nd year the stem he removes will be even bigger, so there is some benefit for fodder and firewood. Every year the benefit gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Year Three:
So then after year five some farmers never cut trees again - they only cut branches and the land is never bare again.
Beginning with the French colonial government,
farmers were discouraged from maintaining valuable trees on their
property by a series of laws and regulations that made all trees state
property and penalized tree felling and pruning on farms (Boffa, 1999).
https://gatesopenresearch.org/documents/3-304
When the creator of the coppicing movement in Niger mentioned the beginning key was legal right to own the trees - I was intrigued!
Once farmers were relieved of these restrictions, they began allowing
young seedlings and tree stumps in their fields to regrow – producing
food, fodder, fuelwood, and other goods.
Sure enough - that is the movement he launched! FMNR.
you just remove one shoot a year and each year the main shoot grows bigger into a tree. By year two the 2nd shoot removed is bigger. By year three the third shoot is even bigger. By year four, etc. you start to repeat the cycle over and leave the fifth stem to grow into the tree. Then when the tree is big enough you just cut the branches from that tree.
The French encouraged Nigerien farmers to grow export crops and introduced improved
veterinary and medical care that increased, respectively, the populations of both animals and humans. These policies increased pressure on land and natural resources and contributed to overgrazing and overharvesting of fuelwood.
I knew the "export crop" exploitation by colonialism was the key problem - I had learned that in my "environmental conservation" geography class at UW-Madison. I got an "A" in that class. hahaha Wow they make the roof FIRST - makes sense! So six ring hoops and about 15 vertical poles to make the hut roof.
The Forest Code, like its colonial predecessor, focused primarily
on the tenure and management of the forest domain. However, the
State, by establishing lists of protected tree species without reference to
geographical boundaries, exercised its authority “beyond the forest domain
and [regulated] the use and harvesting declining precipitously in an era of weak
national economic growth
Some 60 million trees were planted in the 1970s and early 1980s, but less than
half survived due to the dry conditions and lack of participation by local
communities (Tougiani et al., 2009).
Meanwhile, beginning in 1983, the Maradi Integrated Development Project
(MIDP) pioneered a new approach to reforestation that came to be known as
farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) in the Maradi region of southern
Niger (Rinaudo, 2005). Rather than planting trees, the MIDP encouraged
farmers to experiment with simple, low-cost techniques to regenerate
“underground forests” of dormant stumps and manage these naturally
occurring trees for sustainable use (Rinaudo, 2005). In addition to
producing fuelwood, fodder, and other tree products, on-farm trees can
improve crop yields by reducing wind and water erosion and increasing soil
fertility through leaf litter, livestock manure, and sometimes nitrogen
fixation (Rinaudo, 2005).
Apical dominance means the Apex stem grows straight up and grows faster than the other branches of the tree.
In the late 1980s, the Maradi Integrated Development
Project encouraged the Maradi Forestry Department to suspend enforcement
of tree cutting regulations (Rinaudo, 2007). Unfortunately, no formal rights
to trees were transferred to farmers in the Maradi region. Yet, the suspension of cutting fines in Maradi increased farmers’ perception of their rights
to on-farm trees, which incentivized tree regeneration and management
and allowed FMNR to gain acceptance and credibility (Rinaudo, 2008a;
Cunningham, 2010; Winterbottom, 2012).
These reforms helped discourage Forestry Service agents from engaging
in rent-seeking and other practices that undermined the legal sale of tree
and natural products in local markets, such as threatening farmers caught
pruning trees in their field with extra payments for permits and taxes on
wood harvested for sale. Together with CBOs and NGOs, development projects
also organized farmer-to-farmer visits, local training events, extension
outreach, and capacity building activities to facilitate the spread of
effective natural resource management practices, such as water harvesting
and FMNR
It's not being a tree hugger - it's a matter of survival! the soil temperature is not conducive to growing plants above 40 C.
Estimating the livelihood impact per household re-
vealed that the social, health, environmental and eco-
nomic values created by this FMNR project were between
USD 655 and USD 887 per annum.
