Restoring Livelihoods and Landscapes (WABiLED)

Country: Guinea
Project details
Services:
Climate-smart agriculture
Crops:
Tree crops

Restoring Livelihoods and Landscapes in the Forest-Buffer Communities of the Outamba-Kilimi-Madina-Oula (OKMO) Transboundary Landscape in Guinea and Sierra Leone, 2023-2025

Donor: USAID through the West Africa Biodiversity and Low Emissions Development (WABiLED) program led by Tetra Tech

Goal

The goal is to engage forest communities adjacent to protected areas to restore forest landscapes through the creation of sustainable and environmentally friendly livelihoods activities thereby reducing the pressure on the forests.

What we do

To achieve the goal, EUCORD designed an integrated approach relying on five specific objectives:

  1. Establish a demonstration nursery to serve as an incubator and learning center in the OKMO landscape;
  2. Promote sustainable management practices for forest and agroforestry plantations;
  3. Sensitize communities on the importance of maintaining biodiversity and cohabitation among humans, flora and fauna;
  4. Undertake land restoration through tree plantations and natural ecological regeneration; and
  5. Facilitate market access for non-timber products.

All activities linked to the above objectives will engage forest-buffer communities to restore a total of 500 ha of forest landscapes (200 ha of forestry and agroforestry plantations and 300 ha under Natural Ecological Regeneration).  The capacity of at least 1,000 beneficiaries, particularly women and youth, will be strengthened to develop and manage sustainable and environmentally friendly livelihoods including developing women’s entrepreneurship in agroforestry and nursery jobs for youth.

Activities on the Guinean side will be implemented in collaboration with local partners and forestry authorities, as well with the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary (TCS) for activities on the Sierra Leone side.

Staff has been recruited on January 1st and is preparing the participatory diagnosis to identify project beneficiaries, areas to be restored and species to be supplied.

Accomplishments

Guinea:

  • Distribution of 71,700 seedlings produced in the Madina Oula project nursery
  • Establishment of 37.4 ha of community forests (FC) and family forests (FF) and 15.5 ha of agroforestry plots (PAF) for a total of 67 households with secured signed land transfer deeds in the selected sites spread over the ten (10) village communities covered by the project
  • Implementation of support activities and awareness-raising sessions for the dissemination of improved maintenance practices to a total of 237 participants (161 men / 76 women)
  • Facilitated linkages and signature of 142 contracts between 142 producers in the project area and a company sourcing organic sesame in Kindia.

Sierra Leone:

  • 30-day mission focused on transplanting seedlings from the 11 established community nursery sites with the goal of reforesting 100 hectares using both forestry and agroforestry species
  • Throughout the exercise, a total of 65,837 trees were transplanted
  • Each community received focused attention for five days to ensure the proper planting and establishment of seedlings, with community participation and leadership from TCS team.