By Meerim Shakirova and Salimata Folléa
Believe it or not, the rapid disappearance of forests in Cote d’Ivoire is one of the most striking passages of tropical deforestation in the Africa region. Over the past century, Ivorian forests have declined from about 16 million hectares to less than three million hectares. Furthermore, over the last 60 years, 90% of the Ivorian forest surface has disappeared, making Cote d’Ivoire on the countries in Africa with the highest annual deforestation rate. The forest cover has decreased from 16 million hectares at the beginning of the century to about 3 million today. The main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in Cote d’Ivoire include the massive expansion of extensive slash-and-burn agriculture, primarily for cocoa production, uncontrolled harvesting of forests, particularly for fuelwood, bushfires, and mining, notably illegal small-scall gold mining. It is estimated that by 2035, there will be less than two million hectares of forest left in the country and no more forest in the southern part, expect for protected areas. In addition, the rapid growth of country’s population which is estimated of 25.7 million, results from a combination of high natural population growth and significant immigration from neighboring countries, has already put an increasing pressure on natural resources, particularly in the forest zone. The trend is even more worrisome, according to the projections, in 15 years the population could reach more than 37 million.
Furthermore, the link between poverty, sustainable forest management, and gender is a critical issue in Cote d’Ivoire. Women make important contributions to forest value chains and are heavily involved in forest-related activities, such as reforestation efforts. Collecting of fuelwood, medicinal plants, and other non-timber forest products is crucial for women’s livelihoods and the food security of their families.
Unfortunately, rural women are frequently disadvantaged in their access and control of forest resources, including economic opportunities resulting from sustainable forest management. Additionally, women’s views and inputs are often discounted in decision-making processes, and their role in forest-related value chains tends to be poorly supported by extension services.
However, gender norms are shifting in Cote d’Ivoire. Thanks to the financial assistance from the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) through the Forest Investment Program, the Ivorian Government, with the support of the World Bank, is implementing reforestation and conservation activities to increase Côte d’Ivoire’s forest stock and enhance the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities, with a specific window to involve women in sustainable forest management.
An Ivorian women-led association called “Malébi” has been active since 2008 to combat poverty of women and young people in rural areas, and to encourage rehabilitation of forests and their sustainable management in Cote d’Ivoire. The Forest Investment Project has worked with the National Government to partner with Malébi for the restoration of a highly degraded gazetted forest (Ahua) in the center region of the country through agroforestry. Malébi is composed of hundreds of women who lead the reforestation activities by planting native tree species (such as samba and acasia), suitable for fuelwood production as an alternative to natural forests use for cooking. These women also implement the “taungya-based” agroforestry system consisting of planning agricultural food crops (such as cassava, maize, yam, banana, peanuts and so on) among forest trees, while the latter mature and take over the land. All these activities contribute to improving women’s livelihoods through the sales of charcoal produced sustainably and sales of agricultural products from the taungya method. By doing so the project promotes long term land use security in government-owned land and food and income for the rural women in the project targeted zones.
Moreover, one of the more recent priorities for the Forest Investment Project in Côte d’Ivoire is to support rural women through the pandemic. Restrictions on the movement of people and goods, lockdowns, border closures, and other measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 have greatly weakened rural women’s activities. According to WRI, while the pandemic affected all rural people, women faced greater barriers and disadvantages, such as weaker land tenure security and less access to productive resources) that make them less able to recover than men. Recognizing this critical gender gap, the Forest Investment Project carried out awareness raising discussions and workshops for women to come up with participatory strategies to protect rural women during the pandemic and build rural women’s resilience in the face of COVID-19 and any future shocks. In addition, during these meetings masks, sanitizing gels and other personal protective equipment were provided to women to prevent the spread of the virus were provided during their reforestation work. Investing in women’s leadership and empowering women to participate in and contribute to sustainable forest management is critical to addressing future crises and building resilience for our forests, people, and the planet!