Dear colleagues, Your help is needed! The establishment in South-West Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) of the Tai National Park in 1972, the peripheral protection zones (in 1977 and 1983), and subsequent changes in boundaries and eviction of farmers, have built up considerable resentment among the population, in particular because it made traditional game hunting and gathering of local forest Products illicit activities. The current conservation policy uses a repressive approach which has proven to be largely ineffective. The spectacular population growth (a sevenfold increase since 1975!) around the protected areas is putting considerable pressure on the protected forest resources. If unchecked, this may lead to total depletion of the faunal and floral richness of the largest remaining tropical rain forest in West Africa. Public participation in conservation management has been the central theme of discussion during the international seminar 'Amenagement integre des forets denses humides et des zone agricoles peripheriques' held in Abidjan in March 1991 (proceeding with the same title were published as Tropenbos Series 1 in 1992). Participants of the seminar (Government officials, representatives of KfW, GTZ, WWF, Tropenbos, Wageningen Agricultural University and local research institutes and NGOs) agreed on the general principle of public participation in conservation of Tai National Park. At present Fred Vooren, Gerdien Meijerink and myself are preparing a study of how to put the principle of local participation in conservation of the Tai park into practice. Therefore it is necessary to distil from the available literature on the subject of public participation in conservation management those experiences that are relevant for the conditions of the Tai area. Evaluation of approaches and results of projects in Africa comparable to the situation in the Tai area will (hopefully) lead to a) guidelines for an appropriate approach for public involvement in conservation of Tai National Park, and b) guidelines for introducing activities in the periphery of the park enabling local people to produce substitutes for forest products OUR REQUEST: We would appreciate receiving all possible suggestions, entries, referees, citations, case-studies, personal views etc. etc. that will enable use to formulate guidelines and select a number of promising sites (in humid Africa) for in-depth and on the spot analysis. So if anyone out there has valuable information, please contact us at TROPENBOS@IAC.AGRO.NL. Thank you very much in advance! Barend van Gemerden P.S. Would you know a more appropriate discussion list to post this message, please share it with me. ______________________________ | Barend van Gemerden | Tropenbos Foundation | | P.O.Box 232 | | 6700 AE Wageningen | | THE NETHERLANDS | | T 00 31 8370 26262 | | F 00 31 8370 23024 | | E-mail tropenbos@iac.agro.nl | |______________________________|
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