Regreening project
Dodoma, Tanzania
Dodoma, Tanzania
Central West, Senegal
Work
Increasing climate change resilience and restoring soils through farmer-led tree recovery projects
Bringing back trees with Karkaral
Together with local grassroots partners, we help the Treecovery movement expand in Senegal by boosting the adoption of Karkaral: a local name for the FMNR / Treecovery technique with which farmers recover trees, improve their soils and increase their resilience to climate change.
The purpose of our pilot project in Senegal is to assess the capabilities of the implementation partners, farmers, and communities to implement a Treecovery project, and to test the scaling up potential in the landscape.
We have identified three local partners located in the centre of the country, commonly known as the Peanut Bassin, which is characterised by a long tradition of agriculture with millet and sorghum as the main cereals. Union Regionale des Associations Paysannes de Diourbel (URAPD), JIG JAM, and Regroupement Communautaire pour l’Auto Développement des Familles (RECODEF) each play their pivotal part in the regreening of this landscape.
With our programme, we are active on farmland in seven communes located in the Central West regions of Senegal (Thies, Diourbel and Fatick). Central to our strategy for improving livelihoods, soil health and climate change resilience in these areas is the training of so-called champion farmers. These are experienced and well-respected farmers who we train in Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) techniques, enabling them to teach these techniques to all farmers in their villages.
Expected impact in Central West Senegal in 3 years
24.000 hectares
of land under restoration
960.000
regenerated trees
6.000
trained households
WITHIN OUR PROGRAMS WE want to restore 24.000 HECTARES
With help of ancient and new techniques that focus on grazing management and rainwater harvesting, we want to restore 24.000 ha of degraded land within Central West Senegal.
Bringing back vegetation has lots of positive effects on the climate, on the environment and biodiversity, on people and their livelihoods.
We want to bring back 960 thousand trees with Treecovery
We bring back forgotten tree stumps by using a technique called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), or – as we like to call it: Karkaral in Senegal. This is more effective than planting new trees! The goal is to bring back a total of 960.000 trees in Central West Senegal.
By regenerating those trees, we are able to restore the degraded areas and make these areas green and cool again.
Farmer practicing Treecovery in Tanzania in May 2023.
We want 6.000 people to benefit from our programme
Each of the three partners will operate in 10 villages, and there will be two champion farmers per village, to train and support 200 farmers. This will give a total of 6.000 farmers reached in three years.
Our approach
Treecovery
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), or Karkaral in Senegal, is a technique to regrow trees and support new, naturally occurring sprouts to grow big.
With the program local pastoralists and farmers are trained to apply the technique on their own land, allowing the regeneration of an expected 480.000 trees.
Capacity building
By training 30 facilitators (so-called ‘regreening’ champions), we can reach out to 3.000 agro-pastoral households in the Central West region.Â
These champions train their fellow community members on how to regenerate trees on their land. This way thousands of people are activated to regreen their own land, bringing back millions of trees resulting in an increase in drought resilience, food production, and household income. The regreening champions are also trained in rainwater harvesting practices, helping them to regreen the land even further.
Promoting sustainable land use practices
To maximise our impact on landscape restoration, we promote the implementation of different types of sustainable land use practices among the communities, including grazing management, managing invasive species and erosion control measures.
We do this by giving training, organising community meetings and using different communication tools focused on knowledge sharing and inspiration. By activating community members to trial and use sustainable land use practices, we are able to keep the landscapes in the area green and healthy.
YOU CAN NOW (VIRTUALLY) VISIT OUR PROJECT SITES!
To truly understand how nature-based solutions transform entire landscapes, ecosystems and communities, you have to see it with your own eyes.
And that’s where we run into a problem: we can’t transport the entire world to our project areas. With this interactive experience, we found a solution. We decided to bring our regreening projects directly to you. Virtually, wherever you are. Come on in and experience the Treecovery farm!
Our mission
Our mission is to regreen African landscapes in the next 10 years, together with millions of farmers, and together with you.
If we want to cool down the planet in one decade, everyone needs to be in on the change. Through the power of media, communication, data, and the latest technology we can spread our message and scale up. We want to inspire, unite and empower an entire generation, growing a landscape restoration movement.
