Working with local people to identify tree services, deforestation trends, and strategies to combat
deforestation: A case study from Senegal’s Peanut Basin
Peter Gill
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF FOREST RESOURCES
University of Washington
March 2013
Program Authorized to Offer Degree:
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
College of the Environment
Abstract
Deforestation in Senegal’s Peanut Basin is a well-documented phenomenon, but what
should be done to combat the problem is often unclear. Too often, attempts to combat
deforestation by outside actors such as extension agents and organizations fail to sufficiently take
local ideas and perceptions into account. To address this problem, this study uses interviews and
participant-observation to document local people’s perceptions and ideas regarding trees and
deforestation in a small geographical region within the Peanut Basin. Specifically, it describes
local people’s perceptions of the services provided by trees, the negative aspects of trees, and
deforestation trends and drivers; furthermore, it presents local people’s ideas about strategies to
combat deforestation. The study also makes recommendations to extension agents and
organizations working in the area about ways to improve the effectiveness of their work by
taking into account local perceptions and ideas.
i
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Historical background to deforestation in Senegal's Peanut Basin 2
1.1.1 Pre-colonial Senegal 3
1.1.2 French colonial expansion 5
1.1.3 Societal change under colonialism 7
1.1.4 The Peanut Revolution 9
1.1.5 Modern Senegalese politics 12
1.1.6 Modern peanut agriculture 16
1.1.7 Government decentralization 17
1.1.8 Land tenure 18
1.1.9 Forests and forest policy 21
1.2 The Study Area 24
1.2.1 Geography 24
1.2.2 Society 25
1.2.3 Economy 29
1.2.4 Politics 32
1.2.5 Environment 33
Chapter 2: Methods 39
2.1 Choosing the research topic 39
2.2 The case study approach 39
2.3 Data Collection 40
2.3.1 Interviews 40
2.3.2 Participant observation 43
2.4 Data analysis 44
2.4.1 Journaling and web-logging 44
2.4.2 Transcription and translation 44
2.4.3 Coding 44
2.4.4 Testing emergent understandings and reporting 45
2.5 Considerations of study quality 46
2.5.1 Construct validity 46
2.5.2 Observer effects 47
2.5.3 External validity 47
2.5.4 Reliability 49
2.6 Ethical issues 49
Chapter 3: Results and analysis 51
3.1 Perceptions of tree services 51
3.1.1 Provisioning Services 51
3.1.2 Regulating Services 60
3.1.3 Cultural services 62
3.2 Negative perceptions of trees 63
3.3 Perceptions of deforestation and its drivers 66
3.3.1 Deforestation and species decline 66
3.3.2 Direct drivers of deforestation 68
3.3.3 Indirect drivers of deforestation 70
3.4 Local ideas about strategies to combat deforestation 72
3.4.1 Strategies to plant trees 72
3.4.2 Strategies to decrease tree cutting 73
Chapter 4: Discussion 75
4.1 Implications of perceptions of tree services 75
4.2 Implications of negative perceptions of trees 78
4.3 Implications of perceptions of deforestation and its drivers 80
4.4 Implications of local ideas about strategies to combat deforestation 81
4.5 Exogenous ideas for strategies to combat deforestation 85
Chapter 5: Conclusion 88
Works cited 93
Appendix: Basic interview guide used with participants 96
ii
List of Figures
Figure 1.1: Map showing the approximate boundaries of the Senegalese kingdoms in the 18th
Century and colonial trade posts (adapted from wolofresources.org). 4
Figure 1.2: Senegalese domestic peanut oilseed production, 1972-2012 (source: USDA). 17
Figure 1.3: Senegal’s total, primary, and planted forest area, 1990-2010 (FAO 2010). 24
Figure 1.4: Map showing the Kaolack region (shaded brown) and approximate location of the
study area (black star) (Wikipedia). 25
Figure 1.5: Google Earth satellite image of the study area. The area outlined in black roughly
represents the boundaries of the designated silvo-pastoral zone (parcours bétail). 27
Figure 1.6: Dusty atmosphere in the agroforestry parkland outside Sama Ndiayenne during the
dry season. 34
Figure 1.7: Cattle grazing in the silvo-pastoral zone during the rainy season. 38
Figure 3.1: A frame for a thatch roof made from Azadirachta indica poles. 58
Figure 3.2: A dead genet caught trying to eat a Sama Ndiayenne resident’s chickens. 64
iii
List of Tables
Table 2.1: Number of participants falling into various categories. 41
Table 3.1: Tree species important for food identified by participants or observed. 52
Table 3.2: Tree species observed or identified by participants as useful for medicine. 55
Table 3.3: Some species identified by participants and observed to be used for firewood. 57
Table 3.4: Species identified as declining or disappearing in at least three separate interviews,
with vegetation zones according to Gonzalez (2001). 68
iv
Chapter 1: Introduction
Deforestation in Senegal is a complex problem with multiple social, economic, political,
and environmental causes as well as effects. Solving this problem, therefore, is a complex task.
To date, it has involved roles for many different actors, including rural and urban people across
Senegal, the Senegalese government, foreign governments and their development agencies, and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs). However, it seems that too often, outside actors fail to
recognize the knowledge, perceptions and ideas of local people in the areas where deforestation
is occurring, to the detriment of their efforts to combat deforestation.
This study makes a small attempt to overcome this failure by documenting some local
perceptions and ideas regarding trees and deforestation in Senegal’s Peanut Basin. Specifically,
it examines local people’s perceptions of services provided by trees, negative aspects of trees,
and deforestation trends and drivers; furthermore, it captures some local ideas about strategies to
combat deforestation. The study was conducted using interviews and participant-observation in
three villages, Sama Ndiayenne, Fas Toucouleur, and Fas Gueladio, where I lived and worked as
an agroforestry Peace Corps Volunteer from August 2010-October 2012. Local people
identified numerous services provided by trees such as the provisioning of food, medicine,
firewood, timber, fiber, fencing, and privacy; the beneficial influence on the climate by
providing shade, reducing wind, and increasing water availability; and non-material benefits,
such as the pride associated with knowledge about trees and the feeling that one is leaving
behind a legacy for future generations by planting them. Study participants also identified a
number of negative aspects of trees, such as their potential to provide habitat for dangerous or
destructive animals, fall on people or property, provide hiding places for bandits, house bad
spirits, and interact allelopathically with other vegetation. Participants described large-scale
1
deforestation in the area and identified a number of direct causes such as changes in land use,
technology use, and natural forces, as well as indirect economic and cultural causes. In order to
combat deforestation, they identified potential strategies such as planting trees on private land,
managing communal land to control cutting, stricter law enforcement, and finding alternatives to
firewood. I discuss how these local perceptions and ideas can be used by extension agents and
organizations in the area so that they may conduct more effective tree-related work in the future.
To begin, this chapter provides some historical background to deforestation in Senegal’s
Peanut Basin generally and specific background about the study area.
1.1 Historical background to deforestation in Senegal's Peanut Basin
Deforestation in Senegal's Peanut Basin is closely linked with social, political, and
environmental trends that have long-term historical roots. Pre-colonial non-Muslim societies
were caste-based and hierarchical, and engaged in land use practices that preserved much forest
cover. French conquest and colonial rule upset traditional hierarchies, resulting in a flourishing
of Islam and the creation of more egalitarian societies with a new set of religious leaders during
the 19th Century. French and Muslim leaders encouraged expansion of peanut agriculture in the
Peanut Basin, beginning a long-term trend of land clearing and deforestation. In the cities, a
French-educated elite became active in politics during the colonial period and took over the
government after independence, inheriting and perpetuating many of the French agricultural and
environmental policies. Along with climatic changes during the second half of the 20th Century,
these policies contributed to further deforestation. Recently, the government has taken important
steps to combat environmental problems, but the deforestation trend persists. A closer
2
examination of this history helps to better understand the context of the current deforestation
problem in the Peanut Basin.
1.1.1 Pre-colonial Senegal
Senegal has been inhabited for thousands of years, though, as with human history as a
whole, there is knowledge only about the most recent sliver of this timeline. The first
historically attested kingdom was Takrur which existed as early as1068 along the Senegal River,
which now forms the northern border of Senegal. Takrur was controlled by the Toucouleur
ethnic group but likely included ethnic Wolof and Sereer people within its domain as well. The
Takrur emperor War Jabi converted to Islam in the 11th Century, and many Toucouleur followed,
becoming the first Senegalese ethnic group to embrace Islam en masse (Gellar 1982).. Takrur
declined during the 13th Century, becoming a tributary state of the Mali empire.
A new empire known as Jolof arose during the 13th Century, founded by the Wolof leader
Njaajaan Njaay. The empire took over much of Takrur, and would eventually control most of
what is now Senegal north of the Gambia. Unlike Takrur, most Wolof in Jolof did not adopt
Islam, and large-scale conversion of the Wolof did not occur until the 19th Century. Jolof
declined during the 15th Century, breaking apart into the kingdoms of Waalo, Cayor, Sine,
Saloum, Baol, and Djolof. In the upper Senegal river valley, what remained of Takrur was
conquered by the Fulbe ethnic group (closely related to the Toucouleur), and became the Futa
Toro (Ross 2008). These were the kingdoms Europeans encountered when they began to arrive
in the area.
Traditional Senegalese societies were characterized by a hierarchical caste system. At
the top of the caste hierarchy was an aristocratic class, who received tribute from the farmers in
3
their area. Also near the top of the hierarchy were the ceddo, royal warrior-slaves. Despite their
slave status, the ceddo derived power from physical might and often played the role of king-
Figure 1.1: Map showing the approximate boundaries of the Senegalese kingdoms in the 18th
Century and colonial trade posts (adapted from wolofresources.org).
makers. Farmers included baadoolo, or poor peasants who paid tribute to the aristocracy, and
the jaambuur, or independent yeoman farmers. At the bottom of the hierarchy were the
occupational castes who did not derive their livelihood from the land, including gewel, the oral
historians and praise-singers, tëgg, the blacksmiths, and uude, the leather workers (Searing
2002). While the importance of the caste system has greatly decreased since the Islamization of
the Wolof, caste is still evident in society today. For example, gewel are still called on for public
speaking, and they can be found singing the praises of anyone who is willing to give them a few
hundred Francs at public events such as weddings.
Slaves also formed a large sector of society and were important to traditional economies.
It has been estimated that they comprised from one fourth to one third of the population of Cayor
as late as 1880. Some slaves worked under the direct supervision of their masters, but others paid
rents or performed certain duties for their masters and second-generation slaves generally were
not sold. It has been argued that domestic slaves in Senegal could be characterized as dependent
4
clients of their masters, in contrast to chattel slavery in the Americas (Searing 2002). Today,
descendants of slaves form a pseudo-caste group, and like the other low castes are stereotypically
perceived as lax practitioners of Islam.
Islam initially came to Senegal in 11th Century, with its adoption by the Toucouleur in
Takrur, but it spread only slowly before colonial rule. In Wolof society, kings and other
aristocrats cautiously accepted Islamic teachers, or seriñ, in the court and allowed them to
develop limited followings. Islam was seen as encouraging the development of productive
farming that could enrich the society and the artistocrats who sat at its top. Wolof Muslims lived
in compact villages, and cleared the surrounding area for farmland by cutting down almost all the
trees. This was in contrast to animistic groups such as the Sereer, who lived under denser tree
cover and for whom forest groves contained important spirit powers (Searing 2002).
Seriñ
developed limited followings among the Wolof but remained secondary to aristocratic leaders
until the 19th Century.
1.1.2 French colonial expansion
The French began trading on the Senegalese coast during the 17th Century. Slavery was
initially the major interest of the French; they traded guns, gold, and other items for slaves
procured by the Wolof kingdoms, which formed a corridor from the coast to the interior and
controlled much of the slave trade. In the north, the Senegal River became a major conduit for
transporting slaves to Saint-Louis. It has been estimated that approximately 13 million African
slaves made the Atlantic Passage, of which 200,000-500,000 came from Senegal (Ross 2008).
By the early 19th Century, after several conflicts with the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, the
French controlled all the Senegalese coastal trading ports.
During the second half of the 19th Century, the French launched military campaigns into
5
the Senegalese interior. In 1855, a new military governor of Senegal, Louis Faidherbe, annexed
the kingdom of Waalo along the lower Senegal river, which became the first part of the interior
to come under direct French rule. Faidherbe also pushed into the Fulbe-dominated Futa Toro
and the Sereer-dominated Sine and Saloum kingdoms by allying with local rulers to fight
rebellions led by Muslim leaders (Al Hajji Umar Tall in Futa Toro and Ma Ba in the Saloum) in
the 1860s. These alliances gradually turned into outright subjugation by the French. The Wolof
kingdoms of Cayor, Baol, and Djolof fell to French military conquest during the 1880s (Gellar
2005). After the defeat of the Wolof Muslim king Lat Joor of Cayor in 1886, the French
controlled most of what is today Senegal with the exception of the southern region of
Casamance, which remained a conflict area until the 20th Century (and where a rebel movement
for independence continues to this day).
French conquest was driven by economic considerations. They had traded with the
Senegalese interior for centuries, buying slaves, gum arabic (from Acacia senegal, used for
leatherworking, textiles, and paper), ivory, and increasingly after 1840, peanuts, but the royal
houses of the old kingdoms exacted tariffs on these transactions. The French sought a way
around these impositions by expanding into the interior through conquest and subjugation. The
desire to gain and clearly demarcate territory also became more urgent during the “scramble for
Africa” precipitated by the Berlin Conference of imperial powers in 1884. Unlike the British,
the French did not support proselytization in their West African colony, and actively tried to
prevent missionaries from working in Muslim areas of the country. The French often touted
assimilation into secular French culture as justification for colonial expansion, and although
some attempts at social and political assimilation did occur, these came late and were limited to
the cities(Cruise O’Brien 1975). For the most part, the French expansion sought to maximize
6
revenue through trade.
1.1.3 Societal change under colonialism
In their conquest of the interior, the French took advantage of emerging conflicts
between seriñ and traditional aristocratic leaders.
By the 19th Century, Muslim leaders’
followings had grown to the point where they had become rivals of the aristocracies. As
mentioned earlier, the cleric Al Hajji Umar Tall was fighting the Fulbe rulers of the Futa Tooro
and the jihadist Ma Ba was fighting the Sereer in Sine-Saloum during the 1860s; the French
intervened in these conflicts to gain control over these areas. A similar pattern occurred in the
Wolof kingdoms. In Cayor, conflict between Muslims and the old aristocracy led to political
turmoil and eventually the rise of a new Muslim king, Lat Joor, to power. The French defeated
Lat Joor in battle and replaced him with Demba War Sall, a ceddo who acceded to French trade
demands and gave permission to build a railroad from Dakar to Saint-Louis (Searing 2002).
Thus, the French conquered Senegal by intervening in existing conflicts between the aristocracy
and seriñ, installing or reinstating aristocrats who were friendly to French interests.
However, French conquest and subjugation greatly reduced aristocratic power overall,
allowing Islam to flourish and seriñ to expand their followings in the late 19th Century. Sufi
brotherhoods – Muslims religious organizations centered around saint-like leaders – became
socially and politically important and remain so to this day. Today, there are four major
brotherhoods, Qadiriyya, Tijaniyya, Mouride, and Layenne, but the largest and most politically
important are the Mouride and Tijaniyya, which arose during the 19th Century. The Tijaniyya
order came to Senegal after the Toucouleur leader Al Hajji Umar Tall received the title Grand
Khalife of West Africa from the brotherhood’s central authority in Marrakech, Morocco, where
he visited after making the hajj in 1825. As stated above, Tall would later lead a major military
7
resistance against the French from eastern Senegal. In contrast, later Wolof leaders of the
Tijaniyya brotherhood such as Malick Sy and Abdoulaye Niasse generally accommodated the
French. The other most important brotherhood, the Mouride order, was founded by Amadu
Bamba. He had been an important figure in the Qadiriyya brotherhood during the late 19th
Century, but after having a vision of the Prophet he established his own order in 1902. Amadu
Bamba initially had tense relations with the French and he was twice exiled amid fears that he
was fomenting an anti-colonial uprising. However, the Mourides eventually established good
relations with the French, often supporting French programs in exchange for patronage and land
grants (Behrman 1970). Thus, while Muslim revolts were quelled, the followings of the seriñ
grew and their influence expanded during the period after French conquest.
The colonial conquest, decline of traditional power structures, and French policy all
contributed to the decline of domestic slavery during the second half of the 19th Century and into
the beginning of the 20th Century. The social upheaval brought about by French military
conquest brought opportunities for many slaves to escape to the cities or other rural areas.
Similarly, the spread of Islam contributed to the decline of slavery; Muslim leaders opposed the
enslavement of Muslims. At the same time, the French gradually strengthened their policies
against slavery. Although the French had abolished slavery in all territories after the
establishment of the Second Republic in 1848, they took a cautious approach to implementation
in rural Senegal, fearing social upheaval and loss of aristocratic alliances. However by 1895 a
ban on the slave trade was enforced, and in 1905, the governor-general of West Africa issued a
decree forbidding courts from recognizing slavery at all (Searing 2002).
Domestic slavery had
mostly ceased to exist by the early 20th Century.
Family structures also began to change during the colonial period. In traditional culture,
8
age played an important role in structuring social hierarchy. Eldest males formed the heads of
households, and these patriarchs controlled the household’s land resources, thus exercising
considerable control over younger men in the household. Under colonialism, however, increased
migration and fragmentation of landholdings led to decreased parental authority over sons. In
addition, cash crop agriculture (discussed below) and the accompanying monetization of brideprices encouraged young men to make money on their own in order to start a family. At the
same time, the role of women changed with Islamization. Under the old societies, aristocratic
women held a fairly privileged position, but under Islamic law land property and inheritance
were increasingly controlled by men (Gellar 2005). Thus, family structures underwent
significant changes during the colonial period.
1.1.4 The Peanut Revolution
The emergence of a cash crop economy centered on peanuts played a critical role in
determining the course of Senegal’s development. Peanut cultivation for export had begun in
1840, but cultivation expanded tremendously during the late 19th Century and early 20th Century
due to strong demand in France, where peanuts were processed into oil. Peanut production in
Senegal increased from 45,000 tons in 1884-85 to 600,000 tons in 1936-37 (Franke and Chasin
1980). The Dakar-Saint Louis railroad line was built in the 1880s, and in 1923 the DakarBamako railroad was completed, connecting the interior “Peanut Basin” (made up of the former
kingdoms of Djolof, Cayor, Baol, Sine and Saloum) to markets on the coast. To encourage new
settlements, the French sunk deep wells along the railroad lines. Similarly, the Saloum River
was dredged and ports established at Foundioune and Kaolack (Gates 2012). The importance of
the Peanut Basin to the colonial economy was part of the reason for shifting the capital from
Saint-Louis to Dakar in 1902.
9
The expansion of peanut agriculture took place within the context of major migration
within Senegal and the West African region. The decline of traditional aristocracies under
French conquest allowed many slaves to escape to newly settled areas, especially in Baol and
Saloum in the Peanut Basin, where they began to farm peanuts. Many poor badoolo from within
Senegal and peasants from elsewhere in West Africa, including Guinea, Mali, the Gambia, and
Burkina Faso were also attracted by the prospect of cash cropping and moved in, porous colonial
borders making international migration easier at the time. Local chiefs and jaambuur in the
newly settled areas benefited from the migration by allocating or lending unused village lands to
the new arrivals in exchange for labor on their own fields. At the same time, the growing
population caused more conflicts between the settled farming communities and the Fulbe herders
who had traditionally grazed their cattle from the north of Senegal down to the Peanut Basin
every year (Gellar 2005). Thus, colonial peanut agriculture was associated with major migration
that had significant impacts on the existing social groups in the Peanut Basin.
Muslim leaders, most notably the Mourides, encouraged peanut farming. Pioneering
Mouride seriñ founded new estates in the Peanut Basin, where young men would work in
communal groups known as daaraa. Daaraa literally means “religious school,” but it gained
new meaning in the Mouride brotherhood which emphasized hard work as a source of merit
equal to religious learning. Additionally, Mouride and other peasant communities often had a
certain number of communal fields, the harvest of which would go to their teachers, or they
donated tithes from private fields. The French applauded the Mourides’ expansion of peanut
agriculture, and made many land grants to Mouride leaders during the early 20th Century (Franke
and Chasin 1980). Thus Muslim leaders played a significant role in the expansion of peanut
agriculture.
10
Coercive French policies also contributed to the rise of peanut agriculture. French tax
schemes forced peasants into cash-crop production because taxes had to be paid in cash. Failure
to pay taxes resulted in conscription into labor parties for French infrastructure projects. Cash
crop production was also used to create a favorable balance of trade for France – the items
bought with peanut money were mostly French (because other imports were subject to a tariff),
and the price of peanuts gradually fell in relation to the price of the imported products peasants
bought with their peanut money. The French sold imported items such as tobacco, cloth, and
rice at the trading houses where they bought peanuts. The importation of rice, which became a
major staple in the Senegalese diet, further entrenched the peanut trade in Senegal. Most rice
was imported from French Indochina, and unlike millet, the traditional staple grain, it could not
be grown in the peanut basin. Thus rice did not compete with peanuts for field space and in fact
many farmers grew peanuts so that they could purchase imported rice (Franke and Chasin 1980).
In this way, French taxes and trade policies encouraged, and often required, farmers to take up
peanut agriculture.
Peasant debt also became a major problem associated with peanut agriculture. Peasants
often did not have enough peanuts to keep as seed for the next year, and so they had to buy seeds
on credit. They did not usually deal with the French trading houses directly but instead with
middlemen of French, African, or (increasingly) Syrian or Lebanese descent (many Syrian and
Lebanese traders came to Senegal during the period before World War I). These traders took
loans from French banks (which were unwilling to lend directly to farmers) that they sub-loaned
out at very high rates. Interest rates paid by farmers were often in the range of two hundred to
three hundred percent, and peasants easily became caught in debt cycles that forced them to
continue growing the cash crop (Searing 2002). Thus, peasant debt helped perpetuate peanut
11
agriculture in Senegal.
Peanuts were destructive to local ecosystems and played a leading role in deforestation.
As Mouride Wolofs and other peanut farmers encroached onto new land in the Peanut Basin,
they upset the agro-silvo-pastoral systems that previously existed. In contrast to the Sereer, who
were known for their sustainable land management practices that balanced livestock herding with
agriculture while maintaining tree cover, Wolof and Mouride farmers were noted for short-term
profit maximization through agricultural extensification (Pires 2012). Peanut agriculture brought
about land-clearing and deforestation on a scale previously unseen in Senegal, and the peanut
plant proved to be taxing on the soil. Peanuts are a legume, well adapted to the Sahel climate
and can be grown relatively sustainably under traditional practices where they are planted in
rotation with millet and a fallow period. However, peanut cash-croppers increasingly abandoned
rotations and fallow periods, leading to depletion of soil organic matter, phosphorous, nitrogen
and other nutrients (Franke and Chasin 1980). Because of the destructive nature of peanut
agriculture, farmers were (and continue to be) continually seeking to expand into new land,
further contributing to land-clearing.
1.1.5 Modern Senegalese politics
Modern Senegalese politics are shaped by two distinct political systems that arose during
the colonial period – one in the cities, the other in the countryside. In rural areas, the once-semiindependent protectorates gradually came under stronger influence by the French administration,
but a lack of French staff prevented the French from ever ruling “directly” (there were only 63
French administrators in1926, about one Frenchman for every 20,000 Africans). Instead, the
French ruled the countryside by incorporating members of the old aristocracy and local notables
into their administration, whose aristocratic lineages the French wrongly perceived as connoting
12
legitimacy. These canton chiefs were employed to do the “dirty work” of colonial
administration, such as conscripting labor for public projects like the railroads and the military,
and they became widely resented (Gellar 2005). Rural people placed greater faith and respect in
Muslim leaders, to whom they often appealed with their problems and to arbitrate disputes. The
seriñ represented autonomy and independence from the French administration, but they also
served as intermediaries with it and often supported French initiatives by encouraging their
followers to obey colonial directives (Cruise O’Brien 1975). Thus, the seriñ became significant
leaders in rural areas, a role they continue to play today.
In urban areas, the middle class developed more Westernized political institutions than
rural society. The Four Communes – Goree, Rufisque, Dakar and Saint Louis – were governed
as a separate entity from the rest of the colony. Though Senegalese faced numerous forms of
legal discrimination, originaires, those born in the Four Communes, gained French nationality
and citizenship rights beginning in 1848. Citizens had the right to vote and elect a deputy to the
French Parliament. For decades, Commune politics were dominated by local French and metis
politicians, but this ended in 1914 when Blaise Diagne became the first black African to be
elected as a deputy to French Parliament (Gellar 2005). Thus, while the ideal of “assimilation”
was by no means a reality, it was taken more seriously in the Four Communes than in the rest of
the colony. Indeed, unlike the countryside, a French-educated Senegalese elite in urban areas
identified with the French model of democracy, while nonetheless rejecting the undemocratic
character of colonialism and the racist attitudes of French administrators.
The move towards independence happened in the context of post-World War II
geopolitics, but pressure within Senegal ultimately brought independence. Senegalese politicians
decried colonial racism and pointed out that France had depended heavily on Senegal during the
13
World Wars; during World War II, 450,000 troops from French West Africa served in Europe,
and an additional 160,000 served in North and West Africa (Reader 1998). In 1956, the first
national elections for a territorial government were won by the Bloc Populaire Senegalais (later
to be renamed the Union Progressiste Senegalaise), led by Leopold Senghor, a Sereer Catholic
who had studied in Paris during the interwar period. The BPS (later UPS) was a coalition of
moderates and Marxists that formed important alliances with Mouride and Tijaaniyya Muslim
leaders who garnered support in rural areas. As the elected territorial government, the UPS
pressured the French for independence, and by 1960 the French acceded and Senegal became an
independent nation with Senghor as president (Gellar 1982). Thus, independence produced a
government of urban elite politicians who formed alliances with seriñ who garnered rural
support, a Senegalese political model that continues today.
Like many post-colonial African nations, Senegal became essentially a one-party state
after independence and remained so until 2000. Unlike most other African nations, however, it
remained relatively stable (it has never had a coup d’etat) and authoritarian tendencies were
counterbalanced by democratic traditions rooted in the Four Communes and the influence of Sufi
brotherhoods, with which politicians had to negotiate. The ruling party, Leopold Senghor’s
UPS, banned opposition parties in 1963; although three parties were allowed beginning in 1976,
the system effectively barred most opponents from politics. The UPS espoused Negritude and
African Socialism, which proclaimed “the traditional African values of dialogue, consensus, and
tolerance while designating the state as the main agent of development and nation-building”
(Gellar 2005, 55). The government held the key role in the economy through control of
important nationalized industries and the peanut trade (discussed below). In 1981, Senghor
yielded the presidency to his protégé Abdou Diouf, who took a more technocratic approach to
14
governance, and began various structural readjustment reforms aimed at privatization of
government firms in order to receive loans from the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund.
After increased political liberalization in the 1990s, Diouf lost the 2000 presidential
elections to Abdoulaye Wade, the leader of the Parti Democratique Senegalais (PDS), ending 40
years of Socialist Party rule in a peaceful handover of power. Wade, an experienced politician
who had headed the opposition since his party was legalized in the 1970s, pursued liberal trade
policies, continuing the trend of privatization begun under Diouf. A new 2001 constitution
established a unicameral parliament and reduced the president's term to five years. Though he
was elected by a broad coalition of the opposition, Wade delegated power to people of his own
party and began grooming his son, Karim Wade, as a potential successor. He was reelected in
2007 in an election that the opposition largely boycotted. In 2011, despite claims of
unconstitutionality, Wade ran for a third term, but lost in a landslide to his former protégé and
ally, Macky Sall. Though the election was polarizing, it resulted in a peaceful transfer of power
and Sall’s pro-privatization policies represent a continuity rather a break with those of his
predecessor.
While political freedoms have increased since the end of Socialist Party rule in 2000,
corruption remains a problem. In 2013 the United States-based rights organization Freedom
House designated Senegal as “free,” and Reporters Without Borders ranks Senegal 8th in Africa
and the 59th in the world for press freedom, just behind Hong Kong and before Chile (Reporters
Without Borders 2013). However, according to Transparency International’s Corruption
Perceptions Index (CPI), corruption in Senegal worsened during Wade’s presidency from a score
of 3.3 in 1998 to 2.9 in 2011. In 2012, the first year of Sall’s presidency, a new scoring system
15
was used (and thus the year cannot be compared to previous years), but Senegal’s corruption
ranking improved to 94th from 112th in the world the previous year, placing it on the same tier as
Benin, Colombia, Djibouti, Greece, India, Moldova, and Mongolia (Transparency International
2013).
1.1.6 Modern peanut agriculture
The post-colonial government under Senghor became heavily involved in the peanut
economy. At the village level, it operated through agricultural cooperatives with mandatory
membership. In 1966 the government established ONCAD, a parastatal marketing company that
held a legal monopoly on the peanut trade until 1980. Senegal began to process peanuts
domestically on a large scale with the establishment of SONACOS, a parastatal vegetable oil
company, in 1975. Parastatal extension services encouraged the use of animal traction, chemical
fertilizers and pesticides, encouraging continued agricultural expansion at the expense of forested
land and many farmers cut existing trees on farmland (Boffa 1999). Thus, the pattern of
agricultural clearing begun under colonial rule continued after independence.
However, as state peanut enterprises failed to produce profits and as international
financial institutions offered structural readjustment loans, the government began to privatize its
peanut enterprises after 1980. Part of ONCAD’s role was to provide cheap credit to farmers
through the agricultural cooperatives, but farmers were often pushed to borrow beyond their
means for fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides. Defaults on loans became common and
mismanagement of cooperatives by local notables led to financial losses. ONCAD’s monopoly
was ended in 1980, and the government declared its goal of liberalizing the market. However,
many of the funds that had subsidized peanut agriculture were redirected to large-scale projects
for rice cultivation along the Senegal River, which largely failed. Structural readjustment loans
16
in the 1980s and 1990s accompanied further measures to liberalize the peanut trade, and these
also continued under Wade with the privatization of SONACOS (Oya 2006). Although the
government still provides subsidies these vary from year to year, marketing is no longer done
cooperatively and prices remain low (a trend that has continued since soyabeans entered the
world vegetable oil market as a major competitor with peanuts in the 1970s).
Post-independence peanut agriculture, which is almost entirely rain-fed, has also been
subject to the vagaries of a changing climate. Rainfall across the Sahel declined 20-40% from
1966-2000 as compared to 1930-1965. This has been one of the most profound recent rainfall
shifts of any region on earth, although it is not unprecedented (a similar dry period occurred the
early 19th Century) (Nicholson 2001). Rainfall has also been increasingly variable, reflected in
the fluctuating peanut harvests of the past 30 years, shown in Figure 1.2; the recent years
2002/03 and 2007/08 were particularly bad. Thus declining and variable rainfall has been a
major detriment to the livelihoods of peanut farmers.
Figure 1.2: Senegalese domestic peanut oilseed production, 1972-2012 (source: USDA).
1.1.7 Government decentralization
17
The UPS inherited a highly centralized bureaucratic administration from the French,
which they continued to use essentially unchanged for over three decades. Democratic local
governance began when local councils were established at the level of communautés rurales
(rural communities) in 1972, but these were unable to collect local taxes or determine local
budgets and generally lacked power (Post and Snel 2003). In 1990s the Diouf government
instituted a series of reforms culminating in the 1996 decentralization law, which created the
system of administration and local governance in place today. Under this law, the country is
divided into regions, arrondissements, and at the most local level, rural communities (or
communes, in urban areas). Residents of all the constituent villages elect the members of the
rural council and the president of the rural community. The departments and arrondissements
are essentially administrative structures administrated by a préfet and sous-préfet respectively,
who are appointed by the central government. Regions are administered by an elected conseil
regional (regional council). The 1996 law gave rural communities responsibilities for local land
administration and development programs, as well as the power to collect taxes, draft their own
budgets and negotiate agreements with external organizations such as non-governmental
organizations (NGOs). However, in practice the central government (through the arrondisement
and department officials) places constraints on the power of rural communities through the
ability to veto local-level initiatives (Faye 2008). At the same time, village-level political
functions are often fulfilled by chiefs of villages and local seriñ who make community decisions
and arbitrate disputes.
1.1.8 Land tenure
Landownership in Senegal is complicated, because it is subject to two systems –state
laws and local land tenure traditions – which developed independently. In rural areas, village
18
lands were traditionally divided up among households by the chief of the village, who was a
descendant of the founder of the village. During the colonial period, the French created a system
of private land property in the cities, but generally did not interfere with land tenure systems in
the rural areas. The post-colonial government attempted to codify rural land tenure with the
1964 National Domain Law, which declared state ownership of nearly all land in the country
(except for the 2-3% of land in urban areas that is private); this remains the theoretical premise
of all subsequent land legislation. Rural land is divided according to zones, including classified
zones (such as national parks, classified forests, and other protected areas), territorial lands
(made up of agricultural land, pasture land, and non-classified forests), and pioneer zones (a
designation used in a few areas with large-scale agriculture, mostly limited to the Senegal River
valley). The central government controls pioneer zones and classified zones through the Forest
Service, as will be discussed below. Since the decentralization law in 1996, rural communities
administer all territorial lands, which form the majority of the country (USAID 2013). Thus
traditional land tenure practices and the state’s land tenure laws arose independently.
In practice today, a combination of the two systems is used. The rural council has the
power to administer territorial lands, but it often defers to the tradition of the villages. Legally,
the council may withdraw agricultural land from community members who do not use it
productively and allocate it to those who can, or if a piece of land is needed for community use
(e.g. a school) it can withdraw land so long as it compensates the occupant with more land.
Similarly, a resident who has cultivated land for three years may seek legal occupancy rights to
that space. However, in practice rural communities lack the means to oversee land use; they
don’t receive income from taxes on land, and so they do not have land registers or technical staff
for making land assessments (although some efforts by international donor agencies to create
19
cadastral records have begun). As a result, the rural councils often turn a blind eye to land
rentals and have regularized sales by treating them as withdrawals and reallocations. Similarly,
land is inherited upon the death of the user by family members by default, regardless of their
ability to use it productively. At the same time, the expense and difficulty in getting land use
assessments done has led to widespread fragmentation of farms, especially in the Peanut Basin,
where plot sizes have frequently been reduced to “unviable micro-agricultural enterprises” (Faye
2008, 11). Thus, while the government often defers to local village traditions, its attempt to
formalize land tenure has introduced bureaucratic obstacles for rural people.
Land holding today reflects social hierarchies, though large-scale accumulation of land is
uncommon (ninety-five percent of farms are smallholdings, meaning they range from 1.5 to 5
hectares). Local elders, religious figures, and people with political connections tend to have
greater access to land. Most women access land through their husbands, and so their access to it
is contingent upon maintaining the relationship with the husband. Women often control
production in certain fields, but their male relatives assert overall rights to the land. When
women are allocated occupancy rights on the land, their plots tend to be smaller and less
productive than those allocated to men, and they are more likely to be evicted than men.
Citizens can choose to follow either the French or the Muslim system of inheritance; most
choose the latter, under which women are allocated half the inheritance of their male
counterparts (USAID 2013). Thus, the well-connected, and men in particular, tend to have the
best access to land.
Land disputes are fairly common in Senegal. Disputes often take place between
pastoralists and sedentary farmers, and are usually resolved in favor of the latter. This is because
rural councils establish their own definitions of “productive” land use deemed necessary for
20
occupancy rights, and they tend to favor intensive cultivation or plantation of introduced tree
species over natural forest management or pastoralism. Resolving land disputes through the
courts can take 3-5 years, and judgments are difficult to enforce. As a result, disputes are more
often resolved at the village level by village chiefs or local seriñ.
1.1.9 Forests and forest policy
Although the French supported large-scale land clearing for agriculture in the Peanut
Basin, concerns within the administration grew about environmental sustainability of this
practice and the potential for conflicts over land between the largely Wolof peanut farming
population and semi-nomadic Fulbe pastoralists. As a result, they created a Forest Service in
1935 and created two types of protected areas, silvo-pastoral zones and classified forests. Many
of the initial classified forests were located along the Dakar-Niger railroad in order to secure a
stable fuel source for locomotives (Pires 2012). Under the French, the forests were managed by
the central government with essentially no input from people living in or nearby them.
The post-colonial government under Senghor continued the colonial government’s
policies regarding forest administration. The Forest Service, known as the Direction des Eaux,
Forêts et Chasse managed all designated forest lands and granted concessions to urban-based
outfits to exploit them. Hardwoods were cut for timber, but charcoal was the main product of
interest. The charcoal merchants were based in the cities, and usually hired non-local people to
perform the labor of cutting wood and producing charcoal. Migrant workers from Guinea
specialized in operating charcoal kilns, and they continue to dominate this field to this day.
Charcoal was produced primarily for use in cities as opposed to villages, where firewood
predominated (and continues to do so) (Ribot et al. 2006). As the country became more urban,
demand for charcoal grew, leading to over-exploitation of the country’s forests.
21
In an attempt to better manage the country’s forests for local use and sustainability, in the
1990s the government devolved legal responsibilities to local governments for managing many
of the country’s forests. The foundation for this policy was the 1996 decentralization law and
subsequent reformulation of the Forest Code in 1998, giving rural councils and regional councils
jurisdiction over all the country’s non-reserve forests (meaning those forests that are not
classified forests, reserves, or national parks, which are under direct Forest Service control),
which form about 2.5 million hectares, or 30% of the country’s forested land (USAID 2013 and
FAO 2010). The elected governments of rural communities have rights to: “develop
management plans for the forests within their jurisdictions; determine whether or not commercial
exploitation will take place within their jurisdictions; determine who can exploit commercial
forest resources within their jurisdiction;…collect 70% of revenues from fines and the sale of
products confiscated within their jursdiction; and add species to the protected species list” (Ribot
et al. 2006, 1867). Thus, under law, local governments have significant powers over many of the
country’s forests.
However, in practice the Forest Service retains an important role in overseeing rural
communities’ forests. The local Forest Service officer can veto management plans and stop
production if practices are deemed incompatible with the Forest Code, and he/ she must give
permission before rural councils or local producers can sell wood cut in forests under
management plans. However, management plans have only been drawn up in cases where
funding was available from outside donors such as the World Bank and USAID; the vast
majority of community forests lack management plans. In the forests lacking management
plans, the Forest Service retains direct control over forests much as it did prior to the 1998 law
(Poteete and Ribot 2011). Thus, the Forest Service retains de facto control over many of the
22
forests that should, legally speaking, be under the control of the rural communities.
The Forest Service also oversees trees on agricultural and residential land in conjunction
with local governments If a landowner wishes to cut a tree in his or her field or compound, he or
she must submit a request to the president of the rural community and also receive permission
from the local Forest Service official in the arrondissement. These requests are generally
granted so long as the tree does not belong to a protected species such as Khaya senegalensis or
Cordyla pinnata (KI3, date). Thus, the Forest Service retains jurisdiction over trees in a broad
variety of land types.
Despite the decentralized legal framework that began in 1998, Senegal has witnessed
continued deforestation. The total forest cover (made up of parcels at least 0.5 ha with >10%
canopy cover) fell from 9.3 to 8.5 million hectares during the period 1990-2010, and during
2005-2010 the deforestation rate was 0.47%. Senegal’s primary forests, which are mostly in the
Casamance region south of the Gambia, have decreased from 1.8 to 1.5 million hectares during
the period 1990-2010, though planted forests increased from 205 to 464 thousand hectares during
the same period; the rate of increase of planted forests has increased since the new Forest Code
in 1998. Frequently identified drivers of deforestation include clearing land for agriculture and
charcoal and firewood production. Climatic change, particularly declining rainfall patterns since
the 1960s, has also been identified as a major driver (Maranz 2009 and Gonzalez 2001). Today,
Senegal’s forests cover about 44% of its land area, while “other wooded lands” (with 5-10%
canopy cover) cover approximately 4.9 million hectares, or 26% of land area (FAO 2010 and
USAID 2013).
23
Figure 1.3: Senegal’s total, primary, and planted forest area, 1990-2010 (FAO 2010).
1.2 The Study Area
1.2.1 Geography
The study was conducted in three adjacent villages, Sama Ndiayenne, Fas Toucouleur,
and Fas Gueladio, which are located in the Kaolack Region, in the heart of Senegal’s Peanut
Basin. They are located on a flat plain 15-20m above sea level, approximately 20 km to the
south of the city of Kaolack, the regional and departmental capital, and a center for trade. The
villages are an average of 5 km west of Keur Sosse, which is the seat of the rural community
government and a local hub for commerce. They are approximately 8 km northeast from the
arrondissement center, Ndiedieng, which is also a center of commerce and the location of many
administrative offices, including the Forest Service. The villages are accessible by a network of
dirt roads, and lie approximately 5 km from the nearest paved road (the Kaolack-Keur Madiabel
highway).
24
Figure 1.4: Map showing the approximate boundaries of the Peanut Basin (red oval) and location
of the study area in the Kaolack Region(black star) (adapted from Wikipedia).
1.2.2 Society
The villages in the study area were settled during the period of peanut agriculture-driven
expansion in the early 20th Century, and many of the first settlers were probably poor peasants
and former slaves who were migrating into the area at the time. I talked to several elders in the
village of Sama Ndiayenne about its history who claimed that it was the oldest of the three
villages in the study area. Sama Ndiayenne was founded by a Wolof man named Biran Gone
about 100 years ago, who purportedly decided on the location when he saw a large Ficus
gnaphalocarpa tree that he deemed to be suitable as the village penc (meeting tree). As was
customary, the new settlers planted Adansonia digitata trees across the village, many of which
are still standing today. An examination of one recently-felled baobab showed that it had about
80 growth rings, consistent with the elders’ claims that the village is no more than 100 years old.
Today, the village of Sama Ndiayenne is nearly completely ethnically Wolof, the largest
ethnic group of Senegal (approximately 43% of national population) and the group that has been
25
at the forefront of peanut-based agricultural expansion over the past 150 years. All male heads
of households identify as Wolof, though in a few cases men have taken wives from the
Toucouleur ethnic group (P3). The village is composed of 52 household compounds, and has a
population of about 700.
Women outnumber men, as many older men have taken multiple
wives and most young men are absent, venturing to the cities or abroad to find work and send
money home. Children under 18 make up over 50% of the population.
The villages of Fas Toucouleur and Fas Gueladio are primarily Toucouleur, though Fas
Toucouleur has several households of Sereer, Malinke, and Turko ethnic groups. Pulaar (the
broader ethnic grouping which includes Fulbe and Toucouleur) make up 24% of the Senegalese
population, while the Sereer are 15%, the Malinke 3%, and Turko <1%. Like the Wolof, the
Toucouleur, Malinke, and Turko are generally more recent migrants to the area, which was
historically dominated by the Sereer. Fas Toucouleur has 30 compounds, and an approximate
population of 300. Fas Gueladio is made up of just two compounds, with an approximate
population of 30. In Fas Gueladio and Fas Toucouleur, polygamy is less common and there is a
larger presence of young men than in Sama Ndiayenne, making the male:female ratio more
balanced. Children also make up a large proportion of the population.
26
Figure 1.5: Google Earth satellite image of the study area. The area outlined in black roughly
represents the boundaries of the designated silvo-pastoral zone (parcours bétail).
Families in the study area are patrilineal. Men usually live in the same compound that
they grew up in and when they marry, their wife (or wives) moves in with them. Men typically
take wives from the same ethnic group but from a different village, while within-village
marriages are less common. Thus, men have often lived locally for longer than women. Very
few marriages have taken place between the Wolof in Sama Ndiayenne and the Toucouleur in
the other two villages. In the cases where this has happened, Wolof men have taken Toucouleur
wives; Toucouleur men have not taken Wolof wives because the Wolof ask the Toucouleur for
very high bride-prices, according to the latter.
Gender- and age-roles are fairly well-defined. Women, and especially young women,
are responsible for most domestic duties such as cooking, fetching water, washing clothes, and
child care. Women also take part in agriculture, especially in weeding, harvesting, and dryseason vegetable gardening. Men are involved in all aspects of agriculture, especially seeding
27
and plowing. Men are also responsible for constructing housing, and control most of the money
from agricultural sales, though women will often have designated fields (typically peanuts or
cow peas) from which they gain the profits. Children take part in agriculture, especially weeding
and harvesting. Boys are the main firewood collectors, though men and women also take part.
Girls help take care of younger children. Older men and women may play a role in agriculture in
households with a labor shortage, though typically men and women do not perform much labor
after they are in their 60s.
Religious organizations form an important part of village life. The majority of the
population in the study area belongs to the Tijaaniyya brotherhood. In Sama Ndiayen, there is a
seriñ who runs a daara (Qur’anic school) with around fifty boarding students. The seriñ is wellrespected and plays an important ceremonial role, though he does not play a large political role.
In Fas Toucouleur, the chief of the village is also the seriñ, and he runs a small daara, mostly
attended by local children who are not boarders. Both Sama Ndiayenne and Fas Toucouleur
have mosques, which are attended by most men and older women each Friday. Each village has
a communal peanut field, which is used to raise funds for Mosque maintenance, annual religious
teachings, and sending money to leaders of the brotherhood who live in Kaolack and Dakar.
During the rainy season each household contributes laborers during designated work days on the
communal fields. Islam is often at the center of village organizational life.
Women’s groups are also significant organizations. Most married women in Sama
Ndiayenne belong to the village women’s group, which runs a revolving fund, a party equipment
rental business, a daily vegetable market, and a garden. The women’s group leader is influential
and one of the most outspoken members of the community. The Fas Toucouleur women’s group,
though not as cohesive as Sama Ndiayenne’s, runs a revolving fund and has established a fruit
28
tree orchard. They are also involved (along with the village men) in organizing an annual
wrestling tournament, which is attended by people from throughout the rural community. Fas
Gueladio also has a recently-established women’s group that planted an orchard. The women’s
groups are examples of the villages’ organizational capacities.
Despite their proximity, the predominantly Toucouleur villages of Fas Toucouleur and
Fas Gueladio have relatively little social overlap with Sama Ndiayenne. Villagers generally
attend mosque and send their children to daara in their own village. Both Sama Ndiayenne and
Fas Toucouleur have government primary schools, but they are administered by separate parents’
organizations and most primary students attend school in their own village (students from Fas
Gueladio attend school in Fas Toucouleur). Similarly, the villages’ women’s groups have
separate memberships and run independently of each other. Thus the strong organizational
capacities that exist within each village do not exist across village lines.
1.2.3 Economy
Agriculture is the primary local economic activity in Sama Ndiayenne. The vast majority
of farming takes place during the rainy season from June to October, when farmers primarily
grow peanuts, millet, and corn, and some minor crops such as sorghum and squash. Peanuts are
the primary cash crop, but they are increasingly unprofitable due to variable rainfall, loss of soil
fertility, and a fall in prices. Most farmers do not store peanut seed but rather buy it from private
traders for as high as 800 Francs/kg during May-June; at harvest time, prices fall below 200
Francs/kg. During the rest of the year, many households engage in dry-season gardening, though
this is primarily small in scale and for household use. Gardening is usually done on small plots
in or near the household compound, where there is access to well water and it is possible to
exclude livestock. Livestock typically include goats, sheep, and chickens, though a few
29
households also have cattle, all of which are raised primarily for meat. Rams, in particular, are
in high demand for the annual celebration of Eid al-Adha, or Tabaski as it is known in Senegal.
Most households also own one or several horses, which are the main source of animal traction
for agriculture and transportation. Most livestock are kept tied up during the agricultural growing
season, but are allowed to roam free during the rest of the year.
While farming and raising livestock are important, most households in Sama Ndiayenne
also have other income sources. The most important of these is remittance income from family
members, particularly young men, who travel to Senegalese cities or abroad to work. Although
whole families have emigrated from Sama Ndiayenne to the cities, it is more common and economical for
families to stay in the village, where cost of living is low, while sending sons or husbands out to work in
cities or abroad and send money home. Migrants often work in Kaolack and Dakar, and have traveled to
South Africa, Italy, Spain and the US to work. Full-time residents of Sama Ndiayenne also have nonagricultural jobs. Several families run small businesses selling commodities like rice, soap, tea, sugar,
candy, and tobacco from their homes. There are also several food businesses; one household runs a bread
oven that produces about 200 loaves per day, while several women run small food shacks where
sandwiches and coffee are available. Two men in the village own taxi vehicles that they drive to Kaolack
each day. These various non-agricultural activities are a vital part of Sama Ndiayenne’s economy.
In Fas Toucouleur and Fas Gueladio, a more diverse array of agricultural activities plays
a salient role in the village economy. In addition to the common staples peanuts, millet,
sorghum, and corn, farmers grow cow peas, watermelon and cassava. They also practice more
sustainable agriculture methods, such as regular fallowing of fields (which is uncommon in Sama
Ndiayenne today). Five or six households also own cashew orchards, which they harvest
commercially. The practice of fencing in fields to keep out livestock is also common; sixteen
households have constructed fences using wooden posts and thorny branches or using live thorny
30
or unpalatable species grown in a hedge (a technique known as “live fencing”). This is
especially necessary to grow crops like cassava, which take a year to reach maturity and
therefore must be protected through the dry season, when roaming livestock are especially
hungry because fodder is in short supply. As in Sama Ndiayenne, households in Fas Toucouleur
and Fas Gueladio also garden vegetables and typically keep cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and
horses; cow ownership is more common in Fas Toucouleur and Fas Gueladio than in Sama
Ndiayenne.
As in Sama Ndiayenne, non-agricultural income is important in the two Toucouleur
villages. Several households run small shops and food businesses, and remittances are an
important source of income. Many young men leave Fas Toucouleur and Fas Gueladio to work
in the cities, and a number work as fishermen on the Petite-Cote during the dry season.
However, migration is not on the same scale as in Sama Ndiayenne; there are more young men
present in the Toucouleur villages, despite the smaller population size.
There are probably both cultural and economic reasons why Sama Ndiayenne relies more
heavily on remittance income and less on agricultural efforts than Fas Toucouleur and Fas
Gueladio. When I asked local people about this, they favored cultural explanations. People in
Fas Toucouleur typically said that Wolofs in Sama Ndiayenne go to work in the cities because
they are “afraid” of hard agricultural work, or because they value money more than the
Toucouleur. When I asked people in Sama Ndiayenne, they said that putting more effort into
agriculture would be futile, since Fulbe herders would graze their animals on the fields, whereas
people from Fas Toucouleur have a reputation for vigilante justice and the Fulbe are afraid to go
there. Differences in land ownership can also provide an explanation for the differences between
the villages. There is significantly more land per capita in Fas Toucouleur, and many Sama
31
Ndiayenne farmers rent fields from people in Fas Toucouleur. Lack of land tenure in rented
fields may have made Sama Ndiayenne farmers reluctant to make long-term investments in the
land such as planting orchards, fallowing, or fencing fields. Similarly, land availability in the
Toucouleur villages may be responsible for a more optimistic attitude toward farming, leading to
a lower number of migrants seeking work in cities. This in turn increases labor available for
planting orchards, maintaining fences around fields, and growing alternative crops like
watermelon and cassava. Thus, a mix of culture and economics (which are often intertwined)
can explain the differences in livelihood strategies of Sama Ndiayenne and the Toucouleur
villages.
1.2.4 Politics
Village chiefs play important political roles in administering land, arbitrating disputes,
and representing the village to the government administration. Though the rural community
government in Keur Sosse has legal jurisdiction over land administration, in practice chiefs of
the villages play an important role in determining access to land. When the women’s group in
Sama Ndiayenne was acquiring a piece of land for a garden, they first appealed to the chief of
the village for approval before submitting the request to the rural community. Similarly, the
chiefs arbitrate local disputes. I was told about one case of a land dispute between two
households in Fas Toucouleur that was resolved by the chief of the village through consensus
with the parties involved. In other cases, the chief may appeal to the government administration.
For example, in one case a nomadic Fulbe herder was accused of grazing his animals on a Sama
Ndiayenne farmer’s peanut field; the chief of a village went to visit the sous-prefet in Ndiedieng,
the arrondissement center, on behalf of the farmer and others in the village who feared their own
fields were at risk. Chiefs thus play salient roles in managing village affairs.
32
Party politics do not typically play a salient role in daily life, though they became more
significant in the lead-up to the February 2012 national elections. Several community members
became involved in campaigning for Wade or opposition candidates, but there was also
widespread apathy. Most people with whom I talked said that the political issues important to
them were funding the health post and school, bringing electricity to the village, lowering
inflation, and subsidizing peanuts. However, nearly all the candidates seemed to promise all
these things, making voters’ decisions difficult. In the end, voters in the district that included the
study area chose a variety of opposition candidates, with the most going to Abdoulaye Niasse,
who is from Kaolack region. When Sall won in the run-off election, most people seemed
pleased.
1.2.5 Environment
The productivity of local ecosystems is limited by natural factors such as an unforgiving
climate and naturally poor soils, but also changes in human land use over the past century.
Rainfall in recent years has ranged from 500-800mm annually; it is highly variable and has
shown an overall decline in the past half-century, as discussed previously. The vast majority of
rain falls during the period June-October, and almost no rain falls from November to May. The
hottest temperatures are during the dry-hot season from March to May, when daytime highs
often reach 40ºC. The cold season lasts from December to January, with lows around 10ºC.
Winds can be very strong, especially the harmattan which blows from the north during the dry
season, and contribute to soil erosion and dust storms (see Figure 1.6). The combined effects of
low rainfall, high temperatures, and wind leads to a very desiccated landscape by the end of the
dry season. As in many African savannas with a distinct wet and dry season, tropical ferruginous
soils are found in the study area. They are sandy in places but have a high clay content in others
33
and generally very little phosphorus or organic matter, a problem that is exacerbated by farming
practices. Indeed, peanut-driven agricultural expansion over the past century has had a
tremendous effect on all aspects of the environment. The Saloum ecoregion, which includes the
study area, was covered with biologically diverse woodland with 40-70 percent tree cover just
100 years ago, before undergoing what Tappan et al. (2004, 447) call a “complete facelift from
woodland to agriculture.” Today, nearly all of the land is under cultivation, except for the
Figure 1.6: Dusty atmosphere in the agroforestry parkland outside Sama Ndiayenne during the
dry season.
designated silvo-pastoral zone (parcours bétail), which is used primarily for livestock grazing
and firewood collection. I will discuss the environment in the context of the three main zones
that exist in the area: the village settlements, agricultural land, and the silvo-pastoral zone.
Village settlements
34
The villages in study area are fairly dense settlements, centrally laid out around mosques.
Water is accessed through wells, which range from 15-25 m deep depending on the season, and
through water taps in many homes, which provide cheap (though salty) water from a government
tower in Keur Sosse. Traditionally people planted or managed the regeneration of trees such as
Ficus gnaphalocarpa and Adansonia digitata around the village. The former was useful
primarily for shade, while the latter served many purposes including provisioning food from its
fruit and leaves, and medicine and rope from its bark. However, people have also planted a
number of introduced species for shade (such as Azadirachta indica and Gmelina arborea) and
for fruit (including Mangifera indica, Psidium guajava, Carica papaya, Phoenix dactylifera, and
Citrus spp.). On the edge of each village is a burial ground where there is a small protected
grove of native trees, primarily Ficus gnaphalocarpa and Piliostigma reticulatum.
Agricultural land
The majority of the land area is agricultural fields with interspersed trees – what has been
termed a parkland agroforestry system. Parkland agroforestry systems have developed
indigenously throughout the Sahel, and they reflect a farmer-managed process “of species
selection, density management, and tree growth over one or several decades” (Boffa 1999, 2).
Maranz (2009) has shown that Sahelian parkland agroforestry systems typically have higher
densities of tree species usually found in rainier climates further south due to farmers’
preferences for such “Guinea-zone” vegetation because of its fleshier and tastier fruits. In the
study area, the most common tree found in agricultural fields is Cordyla pinnata, a Guinea-zone
tree prized for its fleshy fruit which is eaten with millet. Other trees often found in fields include
Faidherbia alibida, Tamarindus indica, and Parkia biglobosa. However, tree densities in fields
are very low: typically one or two trees per hectare and less than 5% canopy cover. Because of
35
the very low tree density, the term “degraded parkland agroforestry system” might be more
appropriate.
Residents of the study area farm both cash and subsistence crops using a variety of
methods. Peanuts are the primary cash crop while millet and corn are grown for subsistence,
though all crops have some cash value (other minor crops were discussed above). Except for
small-scale dry-season gardening, all agriculture is rain-fed. Fields are typically burned prior to
planting to clear debris and release nutrients, particularly phosphorus and potassium, into the
soil. Livestock manure from households is usually saved and applied to fields before planting,
though farmers are increasingly dependent on purchased chemical fertilizers. Horses are used
for pulling plows and seeding machines. After harvesting, the entire peanut plant is removed
from the field and used as fodder, while millet stalks are removed for constructing fencing for
household compounds. Livestock often graze the remaining crop residues in fields during the
dry season. Most farmers rotate crops between peanuts and grains, and some regularly fallow
their fields, though this is less common among households that have insufficient land
(particularly in Sama Ndiayenne). These various practices have depleted soils of organic matter
and other nutrients, and farmers often talk about a great decrease in soil fertility during their
lifetimes.
In addition to the agroforestry parklands, several households have converted agricultural
fields into orchards. Most of the established orchards are composed of Anacardium occidentale
at about 10m spacing and belong to residents of Fas Toucouleur. There is one small Mangifera
indica orchard owned by a Sama Ndiayenne resident. In total, orchards in the study area cover
about five hectares.
The silvo-pastoral zone
36
The silvo-pastoral zone borders the agricultural fields and consists of a network of paths
connecting to other villages and a main section that contains a seasonal pond. The main section
of the silvo-pastoral zone is about 55 hectares, while the paths connecting to other villages are
typically 100 m wide. The area is a commons for grazing livestock and is the main source for
firewood collection. There is no system of active management in place, although cutting of live
trees in the zone is technically illegal (KI3). It has been highly degraded, with few trees over 3
m high but a high density of shrubs that have been repeatedly coppiced. The most common
species found in this area are ones that can survive repeated coppicing, such as Combretum
glutinosum, Piliostigma reticulatum, Guiera senegalensis, Heeria insignis, Feretia apodanthera.
Thus the structure and species composition of the silvo-pastoral zone reflects intensive human
use over the past decades.
37
Figure 1.7: Cattle grazing in the silvo-pastoral zone during the rainy season.
38
Chapter 2: Methods
2.1 Choosing the research topic
During my agroforestry extension work as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I became aware of
discrepancies between my own perceptions and local people’s perceptions of the value of trees.
For example, at a training I helped conduct on establishing tree nurseries for live fencing (a
technique of planting hedges around fields to exclude livestock, discussed in more detail later), it
quickly became apparent that many training participants were interested in the medicinal value
of the trees under discussion. This was not something I had considered when designing the
training. During my service I also perceived a lack of trees due to deforestation, and wondered if
local people shared this perception. I saw my own work as an agroforestry extension agent as
part of a larger effort to combat deforestation, but I also wanted to understand how local people
perceived deforestation and their ideas about potential solutions. For these reasons, I decided to
undertake a study of local people’s perceptions of tree services, deforestation trends, and
strategies to combat deforestation, using my Peace Corps site and two nearby villages as the
study area.
2.2 The case study approach
An exploratory case study approach was used for this project. The case study, as defined
by Yin (1984, 23) is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within
its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not
clearly evident…[and] copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be
many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result relies on multiple sources of
evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and as another result benefits
from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis.” An
39
exploratory case study, specifically, attempts to describe rather than explain a phenomenon; it
answers “what” questions (“what are local perceptions?”), rather than “how” or “why” questions.
The exploratory case study approach was ideal for studying local people’s perceptions of
tree services, deforestation trends, and strategies to combat deforestation. These perceptions are
shaped by the local social, political and natural environment, and so it is best to study them
within their local context. In order to deal with the problem of a lack of “data points,” I use two
qualitative sources of evidence, participant-observation and interviews. When data from the two
types of sources converge, a stronger argument can be made. Finally, the study was informed by
my prior theoretical proposition that local perspectives about trees, deforestation, and solutions
are important to understand if outside actors (such as Peace Corps Volunteers, NGOs or other
extension organizations) desire to undertake effective tree-related work in the area. This
proposition helped guide data-collection and analysis.
2.3 Data Collection
2.3.1 Interviews
I selected interview participants using a combination of the range-maximization sampling
method and the convenience sampling method known as “snowballing.” As Weiss (1995)
discusses, sampling to maximize the range of types of people interviewed can be an effective
way to represent a large variety of views and opinions when the sampling size is small. I
conducted interviews with seventeen participants (thirteen residents of Sama Ndiayenne, two
from Fas Toucouleur, and two from Fas Gueladio), and I selected participants who I thought
would represent a wide range of perspectives based on several criteria. First, I wanted to
represent both genders and a range of ages. Second, I tried to achieve a balance between people
whom I knew had an interest in planting trees and those who had not previously expressed any
40
such interest. Third, I tried to represent a range of economic statuses (represented by the number
of cement buildings in the household, a loose proxy). Fourth, I tried to represent the many
villagers who have experienced urban life as well as those who had not. Fifth, I chose a few
participants (two males, one female) because of their prominent status as community leaders. I
also noted how participants acquired firewood after they were included in the study (though this
information was not used in selecting participants). In addition to range-maximization sampling,
I used the snowballing method, whereby interview participants were asked to recommend other
potential participants. This method was used in several cases to choose participants from the
same age- and gender- categories as the participants who were asked to make the
recommendation.
Table 2.1: Number of participants falling into various categories.
18-30
31-60
61+
Age and gender
Male
2
4
4
Female
3
4
0
Worked on tree
planting projects
with me?
# of cement
buildings in the
compound
Lived in a city/
abroad?
Yes
No
7
10
None
1 building
2 buildings
3 buildings
4
7
4
2
Yes
No
8
9
Collect it
Other family
Purchase
themself
members collect
7
5
7
In addition to the seventeen participants, I selected four key informants for interviewing
Current firewood
source(s)
because their positions gave them special insight into tree-related issues. One key informant was
41
a current Forest Service officer, while another informant had recently retired from the Forest
Service. A third key informant was a former member of the Institut sénégalais de recherches
agricoles (ISRA) agroforestry team, while the fourth had been president of a community woodlot
and is currently involved in the management of a community forest. I interviewed these
individuals in order to gain a better understanding of forest policies and the functioning of
community forests, and to help inform the theoretical framework for this study.
Interviews with participants were semi-structured. I posed open-ended questions and
then let participants answer with minimal interruption. When appropriate, I asked follow-up
questions for clarification. The interviews generally began with questions regarding the
participants’ perceptions of trees, deforestation and solutions (see appendix for interview guide
questions). At the end of the interviews I asked about the participants’ age, background, and
firewood use. These questions were generally saved for the end of the interview to avoid
priming participants to answer the other questions in a self-conscious manner. For example, I
feared that if a participant first identified themselves as a firewood collector and then was asked
questions about deforestation, they might under-report deforestation in order to avoid a sense of
personal culpability (even though deforestation is a large-scale problem for which no single
person is individually responsible). Interviews were recorded using a voice recorder and
conducted in the participants’ homes, in Wolof, during their free time. The interviews were
generally conducted in private, although sometimes family members entered and left the room
during the course of the interview. In three instances, two participants were interviewed
simultaneously (in one case, a husband and wife, and in the other two cases, pairs of close
friends). The mean (and median) interview length was 22 minutes.
42
Interviews with key informants were generally conducted by appointment at the
informants’ places of work. Questions were tailored to each key informant and covered topics
such as the application of the Forest Code in practice, the functioning of the communal wood lot
and community forest programs, and the informants’ opinions about what strategies could be
effective in combatting deforestation. Two of these interviews were in English, the other two in
Wolof. Key informant interviews were recorded using a voice recorder and lasted an average of
38 minutes.
2.3.2 Participant observation
This study is also informed by extensive participant-observation, both through my work
as an agroforestry extension agent and through two years of living in the study area and taking
part in the routines of daily life. As an extension agent I organized and conducted public
trainings about growing and maintaining trees, and I worked individually with 24 farmers and
two women’s groups on tree-planting projects. This work provided many opportunities to talk
with local people about tree services, deforestation, and strategies for combatting deforestation.
Similarly, my non-work experiences living in the village for two years provided many learning
opportunities. I lived with the family of the chief of Sama Ndiayenne at a standard of living
similar to my host family and ate most of my meals with them. I helped my host family farm
their private fields, participated in work days on the village’s communal fields, and collected
firewood for our household’s use. I often spent free time chatting with villagers at the penc
(community hang-out spot) and I attended community events like weddings, baptisms, funerals,
and religious teachings. These experiences provided numerous opportunities to observe how
people use trees and informally discuss questions of interest for the study.
43
2.4 Data analysis
2.4.1 Journaling and web-logging
Data analysis began while I was still in the field, with the recording of participantobservations in notes, a journal and a web-log. I often carried around a notebook during my
daily work, making notes from which I wrote journal entries at the end of the day. Journal
entries and other observations were used to write web-logs. In these various written recordings, I
tried to pay particular attention to observations regarding farming practices and trees, but also
included many other issues. Thus the observations recorded were selected from the many
experiences I had because I deemed them to be unusual or important. I also included many of
my own ideas regarding the study questions, and reflected on the course of my research. In these
ways, the recording of participant-observation was in itself an act of analysis.
2.4.2 Transcription and translation
The next step of data analysis was transcribing and translating interview recordings from
Wolof into English. I transcribed and translated some of these interviews with the help of a
friend from the village while others were done on my own. Translation involved interpretation
of statements which were to some degree ambiguous. For example, the Wolof word al can be
interpreted as either agricultural field or forest, while the word garab can be used to mean tree,
shrub, or medicine. For the most part, meanings could be deciphered from their context or were
clarified through further questioning. Nonetheless, translation was an interpretative act and thus
an initial stage of analysis.
2.4.3 Coding
After returning from the field, I used the qualitative data analysis software QSR NVivo to
code the text from the interviews, journals and web logs. The coding process began with reading
44
over all of the text several times, then grouping selections of text together, based on whether they
related to tree services, deforestation trends, or strategies against deforestation. I re-read the text
in each group, searching for similarities in the ideas expressed. For a group of similar ideas, I
would assign a code, or a “word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient,
essence-capturing and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data”
(Saldaña 2009, 3). Though I did not use direct quotes in coming up with codes (as in in vivo
coding), I tried to faithfully summarize ideas expressed by participants and avoid imposing my
own interpretations in the initial stage of coding. As the analysis process continued, codes
became more refined; if two codes were similar, I tried to reword them in such a way as to
combine them. After coming up with a well-refined set of codes, I began grouping codes
according to thematic categories. These categories came from external sources. I categorized
tree services and drivers of deforestation by adapting the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment’s
framework for evaluating ecosystem services and drivers of ecosystem change. In the case of
strategies to combat deforestation, I grouped codes under the general categories of “strategies to
reduce tree cutting” and “strategies to plant trees.” These external concepts were used for their
heuristic value in order to better organize the presentation of ideas. Thus, coding incorporated
elements of two contrasting analysis strategies that have been termed “immersion-based”
(inductive, not prefiguring categories) and “objectivist” (using a preconceived framework)
(Marshall and Rossman 1999).
2.4.4 Testing emergent understandings and reporting
Before selecting ideas to present in this report, I used several criteria to test the codes and
thematic groupings the ideas were based on. First, I reread the text related to each code to make
sure that the code reflected the meaning expressed in the text. Second, I looked once again at the
45
codes listed under thematic groups and considered other ways of categorizing. Finally, I focused
on ideas expressed by codes that were mentioned independently many times and from various
sources (both interview transcripts and participant observation recordings). I avoided presenting
ideas that were mentioned by only one or two participants, except in the case of identifying
provisioning tree services (such as firewood, timber, or medicinal uses of trees), where I used
participant observation extensively to supplement interviews. In reporting the results and
analysis in this paper, I have tried to make clear the sources of each idea, and where possible, to
include direct quotes to better illustrate participants’ ideas.
2.5 Considerations of study quality
2.5.1 Construct validity
Construct validity is a primary concern for any type of study; that is, are the measures
used the correct tools for studying the subject of interest? Interviews, which were open-ended
and conversation-like, provided a good forum for participants to express their ideas and
perceptions regarding trees and their uses, deforestation, and strategies to combat deforestation.
Additionally, if what was said during interviews was supported by participant-observations, the
claim that a certain perception or idea was important could be strengthened. Thus, the use of two
separate sources of data, interviews and participant-observation, strengthens the study’s construct
validity.
It is worth clarifying that asking local people is not, on its own, the best method for
obtaining a holistic or objective understanding of tree services, deforestation trends, or strategies
to combat deforestation. Indeed, there may exist tree services, trends in deforestation, and
potential strategies to combat deforestation that no participants recognized. If the objective were
to understand deforestation trends in the study area, then long-term forest monitoring, either
46
remote sensing or in situ and perhaps in combination with interviews with local people, would be
necessary. However, the subject of interest is local people’s perceptions and ideas, and this
study does not attempt to provide a holistic picture of tree services, deforestation trends, or
potential strategies to combat deforestation.
2.5.2 Observer effects
In assessing construct validity, it is also necessary to consider my effects as an observer
and as an interviewer on the study participants. Observer effects exist in any study employing
participant observation or interviews, but they can be especially prominent within a crosscultural context. Ethnography, which uses participant observation and interviews as some of its
principle methods, attempts to be “reflexive.” That is, “it is conducted in full awareness of the
myriad limitations associated with humans studying other human lives” (O’Reilly 2005, 17). In
order to be clear about the limitations of the study’s construct validity, it is important to reflect
on how my role – as a foreigner and as an extension worker with the Peace Corps – likely
influenced the people I talked with and whose lives I observed.
Despite becoming integrated into society in many ways, I remained an outsider in that I
was a white non-Muslim. As a white person, I was considered a toubab, the term traditionally
used for French people but now used for white people in general. The conflation of these terms
in Senegalese languages suggests that even as an American, my presence could not be totally
separated from the context of European colonial history. Many local people held negative
opinions of the French, and my public image was no doubt colored by association with French
colonialism to some degree. I remained an outsider also in the sense that I was a non-Muslim in
a nearly all-Muslim community. Though people accepted my non-Muslim status, I was never
invited to attend mosque and never entered the local mosque except near the end of my service
47
for a non-religious function. My outsider status as a white non-Muslim limited the extent to
which I was able to build rapport and the extent to which I was able to partake in and observe
daily life.
My work as an agroforestry extension agent through the Peace Corps also affected the
way I was perceived by study participants. As an extension agent, I was widely perceived to be
an advocate for planting trees, which may have led participants to emphasize the value of trees
and planting them more than they would have had they been talking to another investigator. As a
Peace Corps volunteer I obtained several grants that brought funds into the community for
projects. My role as a source of funds may have resulted in interview participants being more
inclined to discuss strategies for combating deforestation that involve outside intervention and
funds, as opposed to low-budget, local-level interventions.
Despite these limitations, the long-term nature of the study and the extent to which I did
integrate into the community helped reduce observer effects. As O’Reilly (2005, 92) states,
“when you have hung around long enough you become part of the setting, part of the background
that others are taking for granted.” Over the course of two years, I became more integrated into
daily life, established friendships with many community members, and perhaps faded into the
“background,” to some extent. This helped to counteract observer effects to some degree.
2.5.3 External validity
It is important to define the domain under which the study’s results can be generalized,
that is, its external validity. As mentioned earlier, the case-study approach studies a problem
within its context because the context is deemed significant, and this limits the domain in which
its findings can be generalized. This study aims to describe local people’s perceptions of
deforestation and strategies to combat it in the local context, and does not assume that these
48
perceptions and ideas are the same across a broader region. In order to draw more generalizable
conclusions, it would be necessary to conduct many more case-studies throughout the domain of
interest.
2.5.4 Reliability
The study’s reliability is difficult to assess, because it is not certain that another
researcher studying the same research questions would produce the same set of findings and
conclusions as the current study. Indeed, as in any qualitative social science research, the
researcher is to some extent the “instrument” of data collection and analysis. However, the issue
of reliability can be addressed through replication – another study involving data collection and
analysis on the same subject, or reanalysis of the data collected for this study. To that end, I
have tried to clearly document how I collected the data and conducted the analysis.
2.6 Ethical issues
I received category two exemption status from the University of Washington’s Human
Subjects Division to conduct the study (Exemption #41991). One reason for the exemption was
the low-impact nature of the study. Interview questions did not intentionally seek information
that would be personally damaging to any of the participants. While people’s perceptions and
opinions regarding deforestation differ, these differences are more likely to foster constructive
debate than conflict. To this end, I will submit the completed paper to Peace Corps/ Senegal and
the Peace Corps volunteer who replaced me in Sama Ndiayenne so that the findings may be used
to improve future projects in the area.
I also received exemption status because I informed interview participants and key
informants about the nature of the study and took measures to protect their confidentiality.
Before conducting interviews, I explained to the participants and key informants that I was
49
researching trees in the area to write a paper for my university and I wanted to understand their
perspective. I recorded interviews with participants and key informants after asking their
permission to use a voice recorder. I transcribed and translated some of these interviews with the
help of a translator from the local community, who was able to identify the speakers, but in cases
where I felt that the interview content was at all controversial, I transcribed and translated on my
own. Names have been removed from the interview transcripts, and when views are presented in
the paper they are done so anonymously (using labels P1-P17 for participants and KI1-KI4 for
key informants).
Participant observation was an ongoing process in daily life. This aspect of the research
did not involve explicit consent by those whom I observed, because it focused on public rather
than private behavior. It is worth noting that in contrast to the United States, in Senegal much
more behavior is "public behavior" - people drop in at others' homes at all times of day, and even
when one is working in the fields or collecting firewood one expects to run into other people
frequently. Privacy is much more limited than in America, though still available. For example, if
someone does not want to be disturbed, they will go inside and close the door to their room.
Participant-observation thus was a part of daily life and tacitly, if not explicitly, accepted by
participants.
50
Chapter 3: Results and analysis
3.1 Perceptions of tree services
Participants identified a number of ways trees directly benefit the human population, and
I observed a number of ways that local people use trees and tree products. I will use the term
“tree services” to describe the various benefits that people derive from trees, which can be
categorized as provisioning, regulating, and cultural services, adapting the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment’s (MA’s) classification system for ecosystem services. Provisioning
services are material products people obtain from trees. Participants identified a wide variety of
provisioning tree services such as food, medicine, firewood, timber, fiber for rope, delineation
and protection of property, privacy, and fodder. Regulating services are “the benefits people
obtain from the regulation of ecosystem processes” performed by trees. Participants identified
regulation of the hydrologic cycle, provision of shade and reduction of wind as important
regulating services of trees. Cultural services are nonmaterial benefits people obtain from trees.
Participants often expressed a sense of pride in their knowledge about trees and tree uses, and
valued trees as a way to leave behind a legacy for future generations. The MA also includes
supporting services as a fourth category; those services that “are necessary for the production of
all other ecosystem services, such as primary production [of organic matter], production of
oxygen, and soil formation” (Alcamo and Bennett 2003). However, supporting services were
not discussed by participants and so are not included in the results.
3.1.1 Provisioning Services
Food
Participants were often very enthusiastic in discussing the food value of trees and the
various ways they can be consumed. Parts of trees used for food include fruits, leaves, seeds,
51
and sap. A full list of tree species identified by participants is provided in Table 3.1, along with
the parts of the tree used for food.
Table 3.1: Tree species important for food identified by participants or observed.
Latin name
English name
Wolof name
Food uses
Adansonia digitata
Baobab
Gui
Fruit, leaves and sap.
Anacardium occidentale
Cashew
Darkasau
Fruit and nut.
Carica papaya
Papaya
Papaya
Fruit.
Citrus spp.
Lime
Limon
Fruit.
Cordyla pinnata
Bush Mango
Dimbu
Fruit and sap.
Detarium microcarpum
Tallow tree
Danq
Fruit.
Detarium senegalense
Ditax
Fruit.
Diospyros mespiliformis
Alom
Fruit.
Ficus gnaphalocarpa
Soto
Fruit.
Grewia flavescens
Xorom sap
Fruit.
Lannea acida
Soon
Fruit.
Mangifera indica
Mango
Mango
Fruit.
Moringa oleifera
Moringa
Nebadaay
Leaves and seeds.
Musa acuminata
Banana
Banana
Fruit.
African locust
Parkia biglobosa
Nete
Fruit.
bean
Phoenix dactylifera
Date palm
Tandarma
Fruit.
Psidium guajava
Guava
Goyaap
Fruit.
Sterculia setigera
Mbep
Sap.
Tamarindus indica
Tamarind
Dakkar
Fruit.
Vitex doniana
Lënga
Fruit.
Zizyphus mauritiana
Jujube
Sidem
Fruit.
?
Béet
Fruit.
?
Nday dugup
Fruit.
Tree-foods are valued for a number of reasons; one is that they can be profitable.
Commercial trees such as Mangifera indica and Anacardium occidentale, for which there are
local and national markets, are highly prized. During interviews, Mangifera indica was
mentioned more times by more participants than any other tree species, and Anacardium
occidentale was also near the top of the list. Other commercially valuable species such as
Psidium guajava, Carica papaya, Musa acuminata, and Phoenix dactylifera were also discussed
though not as extensively, probably because most of these are less suited to the local climate and
52
require dry-season irrigation. All these commercially valuable trees are desired for personal
consumption in addition to any potential commercial value.
Many other food-producing tree species identified by participants are valued primarily
for household consumption. These include Adansonia digitata, béet, Cordyla pinnata, Detarium
microcarpum, Detarium senegalense, Diospyros mespiliformis, Ficus gnaphalocarpa, Grewia
flavescens, Lannea acida, Moringa oleifera, nday dugup, Parkia biglobosa, Sterculia setigera,
Tamarindus indica, Vitex doniana, and Zizyphus mauritiana. These species are generally found
wild or have been managed for natural regeneration in fields. They are prized for their provision
of food that is tasty, healthful, liked by animals as well as people, and their availability during
times of hunger in the past (many tree species fruit during the “hunger season” before the
harvest). Children in particular search out many of the wild fruit species, especially jujube.
Though most of these species have some local market value (e.g. Cordyla pinnata, Moringa
oleifera, Parkia biglobosa, Tamarindus indica, and Zizyphus mauritiana products can regularly
be found for sale at the weekly market in Keur Sosse), they are primarily harvested for
household consumption.
The value of food-producing trees is evident by people’s willingness to invest money,
time and effort into growing them as well as protecting wild trees like Cordyla pinnata.
Although only a few farmers have established orchards, most have invested in fruit trees for their
household compounds where they are better able to protect and water them. Typical food trees
found inside compounds include Mangifera indica, Psidium guajava, Citrus spp., Carica
papaya, and Moringa oleifera. In Fas Toucouleur in 2012, farmers were paying 1,000 Francs
per Mangifera indica seedling, (approximately USD 2) twice the going rate in other areas of the
country where the trees are more plentiful. In several cases, villagers have invested years in
53
watering Phoenix dactylifera trees in their compounds that have grown only centimeters in the
hope that they will one day fruit (unfortunately, this is unlikely due to the species’ lack of
suitability to the local climate). Furthermore, people have purposely preserved some wild
species such as Cordyla pinnatabecause of their food value, as one participant explained: “We
protected them. Because we eat their fruit...We tell the kids, don’t cut the Cordyla pinnata.
Because in a little while, they’ll start to fruit. They fruit so much that you can eat just
that...That’s why we still have them, because we protected them” (P17). Thus, people’s efforts
to grow and preserve food-producing trees reflect the high value people place on tree-foods.
Medicine
Participants were also enthusiastic to talk about the various medicinal values of trees, and
many instances of tree-medicine use were observed during daily life. Nearly all trees were
considered to have some medicinal value; in fact, the Wolof word garab denotes both “tree” and
“medicine.” All parts of trees can be used for medicine, including the bark, leaves, stems, fruit,
seeds, and roots; however use of bark and leaves is probably the most common. Tree products
are used to treat all manner of illnesses, though the most common uses included treatment for
colds, fevers, fatigue, gastric problems, skin problems, snake bites, and animal illnesses. Trees
are also used for what Westerners might term “magical-religious” purposes, but in Wolof culture
these are also considered to be “medicine” (garab). For example, small bundles of twigs from
certain tree species are often collected and buried around the household compound in order to
protect the inhabitants from disease or other dangers. Some of the most salient medicinal trees
identified by participants and through observation are listed in Table 3.2 below.
54
Table 3.2: Tree species observed or identified by participants as useful for medicine.
Wolof
name
Latin name
English name
Acacia nilotica
Gum Arabic
tree
Neb neb
Acacia seyal
Thirsty thorn
Fënna
Adansonia
digitata
Baobab
Gui
Afromosia
laxiflora
Kuulu
kuulu
Combretum
glutinosum
Detarium
microcarpum
Ratt
Tallow tree
Guiera
senegalensis
Danq
Ngeraan
Moringa
oleifera
Moringa
Nebadaay
Piliostigma
reticulatum
Camel’s foot
Ngigis
Vitex doniana
Black plum
Lënga
?
Fayaar
Medicinal uses
Observed use for toothaches. Bark leaves and gum
(hemorrhage, cold, gastric problems, eye problems, scurvy),
roots (toothache), pods, seeds and roots (gastric problems, STIs,
oral infections, eye problems) (von Maydell 1990).
Participants identified use for skin problems. Bark, leaves, gum
(hemorrhage, colds, gastric problems, jaundice, STIs,
headaches, skin and eye issues) (von Maydell 1990).
Bark (fevers, infections, toothache), fruit (fevers, dysentery,
infections, fatigue), leaves (infections, sores, respiratory
problems, kidney and bladder problems, gastric problems) (von
Maydell 1990).
Participants identified use for skin problems.
Observed use of leaves for colds. Bark (influenza, rheumatism,
wounds), roots (worms, cough, STIs, gastric problems), leaves
(fever, bleeding, gastric problems, headache, sores, rheumatism,
wounds), fruit and seeds (STIs and skin infections) (von
Maydell 1990).
Participants identified use of bark and roots for skin problems.
Roots (gastric problems, STIs, respiratory problems, itching),
bark (gastric problems, rheumatism), stems (weakness,
meningitis, neonatal care), leaves (gastric problems, leprosy,
STIs, night blindness), fruit (vertigo, meningitis) (Arbonnier
2004).
Observed use of leaves for colds. Roots (worms, sore throat,
gastric problems), roots and leaves (hemorrhoids), bark (gastric
problems), stems (insanity, epilepsy, fever, vomiting,
weakness), leaves (loss of appetite, skin problems, cold, cough,
respiratory problems, headache, fever, dental problems, gastric
problems, weakness), fruit (hiccups) (Arbonnier 2004).
Participants identified use of bark for fatigue. Various parts
used for gastric problems, skin problems, diarrhea, STIs, scurvy,
headaches, rheumatism, and epilepsy (von Maydell 1990).
Roots (gastric problems, STIs, swelling), bark (antiseptic,
gastric problems, nose bleeds), bark and leaves (wounds,
leprosy, ulcers), stems (malnutrition), leaves (fevers, colds,
rheumatism, tooth decay, STIs, epilepsy), fruit (constipation)
(Arbonnier 2004).
Participants identified use for fevers. Roots (sterility), leaves
(weakness), fruit (lack of milk production), roots (gastric
problems, jaundice, leprosy), bark leaves and fruit (wounds,
gastric problems, pox and skin diseases), bark (worms, leprosy,
sterility, toothache), leaves (gastric problems, cold, chicken pox,
weakness, epilepsy), fruit (paralysis) (Arbonnier 2004).
Participants identified use for upset stomach.
Tree-medicines play an important supplementary role to healthcare services provided by
the government. The government provides healthcare services through a health post in Keur
55
Sosse, approximately 5 km away and connected to the villages in the study area by a dirt road.
Though this is not remote by Senegalese standards, medicinal trees are often located in much
closer proximity to sick people, making them an attractive, alternative source of medicine.
Furthermore, a visit to the health post can be expensive by local standards, despite subsidies
from the government and donor agencies. There is a small fee to visit the health post, plus the
costs of purchasing prescribed medicines (which are often overprescribed). Tree-medicines,
which can be collected for free, are an economically attractive alternative. As one participant put
it: “If I get sick, I just take a part of the tree and boil it, and put it in a cup...You can go to the
hospital and pay 5000. Maybe you’ll get better, maybe you won’t. Or you can go to your
Moringa oleifera tree, make your own medicine, and have peace” (P15). People seemed open to
trying medicines from a variety of sources in order to find one or a combination that works. For
medical emergencies and for childbirth, most people would visit the health post. However, in
many cases, tree-medicines provided an important alternative or supplement to the government
health system.
Firewood
One of the most important tree services is the provision of firewood. Firewood is the
main source of cooking fuel for nearly all households in all of the villages. Gas and charcoal are
used only infrequently, primarily in small food businesses and for brewing tea, respectively.
Most firewood comes from live trees and shrubs growing wild in the designated silvo-pastoral
zone. Owners of planted Anacardium occidentale trees also prune the lower branches of their
trees to use as firewood (P6, P16). The most frequently used species for household cooking were
Combretum glutinosum, although a number of other species were also used, listed in Table 3.3
below.
56
In addition to its use-value, firewood is a commodity and a source of cash income for
those who collect it. Seven of the interview participants said that they sometimes buy firewood.
Prices range from 2,000-3,000 Francs (USD 4-6) for a cart-load of typical firewood such as
Combretum glutinosum to 5,000 Francs (USD 10) for the high quality species Cordyla pinnata,
which commercial bread bakers use almost exclusively (Journal June 22 2012, P4). Boys and
young men often collect firewood for sale, though older men and women may also take part.
While charcoal production is a major economic activity elsewhere in Senegal, it is not practiced
in the study villages.
Table 3.3: Some species identified by participants and observed to be used for firewood.
Latin name
English name
Wolof name
Notes
Anacardium
Lower branches
Cashew
Darkasau
occidentale
pruned for firewood.
Coppices; most
Combretum
common species for
Ratt
glutinosum
household use.
Bread bakers use this
Cordyla pinnata
Bush Mango
Dimbu
species almost
exclusively.
Ficus gnaphalocarpa
Guiera senegalensis
Soto
Ngeraan
Heeria insignis
Piliostigma reticulatum
Vitex doniana
Wasawasoor
Camel’s foot
Black plum
Ngigis
Lënga
Coppices.
Coppices.
Coppices.
Coppices.
Timber
Some tree species are valued for their use as timber, including Acacia seyal, Eucalyptus
camaldulensis, Cordyla pinnata, and Azadirachta indica. Polewood from Azadirachta indica,
Cordyla pinnata, and Eucalyptus camaldulensis is used as posts for fences in household
compounds and to construct frames for the roofs of housing. Cordyla pinnata is the most
desirable tree species for posts because of its hardness and resistance to rot and termites, while
Azadirachta indica (especially when pollarded) and Eucalyptus camaldulensis are straighter and
57
more desirable for roofing. Acacia seyal is used primarily for making handles for tools such as
hoes and axes. Timber is valuable for household use and as a source of income. Azadirachta
indica poles large enough for roofing typically cost 300 Francs (USD 0.6); Eucalyptus
camaldulensis poles, which are used for scaffolding in construction work in Kaolack and Keur
Sosse, sell for 1,000-1,500 Francs (USD 2-3) (P14 and KI4). Participants also spoke of
Pterocarpus erinaceus, which is useful for making furniture but has all but disappeared from the
area due to over-cutting for timber use. Today, most wooden furniture or milled wood is made
using timber from southern Senegal.
Figure 3.1: A frame for a thatch roof made from Azadirachta indica poles.
Fiber for rope
Bark from two species, Adansonia digitata and Piliostigma reticulatum, is commonly
used to make rope. Rope is made with minimal processing; bark is typically soaked in water and
then cut into long thin slices. Rope is used for a variety of purposes, including constructing
58
frames for houses, tying fences to posts, and bundling millet during the harvest.
Delineation and protection of property
Trees also serve to delineate property boundaries, and in the case of live fencing, to
protect property. In some cases, large trees such as Cordyla pinnata or Azadirachta indica have
been planted on the edges of agricultural fields to delineate property lines. The practice of live
fencing has become increasingly common and was one of my principle areas of work with the
Peace Corps (and of previous volunteers who had served in Fas Toucouleur). Live fencing is the
planting of thorny or non-palatable species as hedges around fields and gardens to delineate
property and exclude livestock. Previously, non-palatable species such as Euphorbia
balsamifera and Jatropha curcas were most commonly used for this purpose, but farmers
increasingly plant thorny species such as Acacia mellifera, Acacia nilotica and Parkinsonia
aculeata after being encouraged to do so by Peace Corps volunteers. One participant described
the importance of live fencing in protecting fields from livestock: “Because if you have a live
fence then you can have more trees. Before you have fruit trees, you should have a live fence.
In my view, fundamentally you need to have a fence before you place anything inside” (P9).
However, it is worth noting that this participant and several others (P6, P16) who mentioned live
fencing during interviews all worked with me on tree-planting projects. Live fencing was not
identified as a salient aspect of trees in interviews with participants who were not involved with
me on tree-projects.
Privacy
Tree cover also provides privacy, which can be hard to find within the village. One
participant mentioned that although nearly all household compounds have latrines today, the
forest used to serve as the village toilet before latrines were constructed (P17). Today, many
59
children still use the dense shrubs in the designated silvo-pastoral zone instead of latrines.
Fodder
Fodder was not a salient tree service mentioned by interview participants, though I
observed certain tree species used for this purpose. Local people sometimes cut branches from
the native trees Ficus gnaphalocarpa and Adansonia digitata or from introduced species, such as
Leucaena leucocephala and Moringa oleifera, to feed the leaves to livestock; Azadirachta indica
is a fodder source of last resort because it is not very palatable. A couple of participants
mentioned tree-fruits that animals eat, such as béet (P13, P14). However, horses are most often
fed agricultural residues while sheep, goats and cows are grazed in the silvo-pastoral zone, where
they eat variety of herbaceous plants and small trees and shrubs. Many native tree and shrub
species are unpalatable or have thorns that protect them against browsing. It is perhaps for these
reasons that fodder from trees was not commonly mentioned in interviews.
3.1.2 Regulating Services
Regulation of the hydrologic cycle
Nearly half of the interview participants mentioned that trees increase the availability of
water (P1, P2, P4, P7, P9, P13, P15, P16). The mechanisms that they cited for this were raising
the ground water table and increasing rainfall. It is a widely held perception in the area that trees
bring rain, as two simultaneously-interviewed participants explained: “P16: When there are
fewer trees, there’s less water. The rain. There is less rain water when there are fewer trees.
P15: Before, in the past, around 10 years or more before, in the area around Touba it would only
rain around three times each rainy season. There weren’t trees then. Trees have use...Rain will
fall more easily.” Many local people see the regulation of the hydrologic cycle, and in particular
trees’ ability to bring rain, as an important service provided by trees.
60
Provision of shade
Many interview participants talked about the importance of shade provided by trees (P5,
P8, P9, P10, P15). During the agricultural season people often rest under trees such as Cordyla
pinnata, Parkia biglobosa and Azadirachta indica in fields. Most households have planted shade
trees within their compounds, particularly Mangifera indica, Azadirachta indica, and Ficus spp.
where people relax and do work (such as make fencing, pound millet, or shell peanuts). Large
trees such as Ficus gnaphalocarpa or Azadirachta indica serve as penc, or public meeting areas and
hangout-spots, which are particularly used by men. Interview participants also cited shade as
being useful for growing plants, and a number of households grow garden vegetables such as
peppers in the shade of trees such as Mangifera indica and Zizyphus mauritiana. Thus shade is
an important tree service valued by local people.
Reduction of wind
Several participants mentioned trees’ value in reducing wind (P1, P4, P13). Strong winds
often occur in the area, especially the harmattan which blows from the north during the dry
season. Wind can erode soil and damage housing, fencing, crops and gardens; dust storms strong
enough to force people indoors occur several times per year. Tree cover is valued for its ability
to reduce wind speeds. As one participant explained: “If there aren’t trees, there will be lots of
wind like in Mauritania...If there’s too much wind, you won’t have good crops” (P4). As part of
my work, I helped several farmers establish windbreaks, which consist of lines of trees planted
along the edges of fields. A variety of species can be used for windbreaks, including Acacia
spp., Eucalyptus camaldulensis, and Prosopis julliflora, which can simultaneously serve as live
fencing. Interview participants may have been referring to windbreaks or tree cover in general
when discussing trees’ reduction of wind.
61
3.1.3 Cultural services
Trees and self-sufficiency
Participants often spoke about the various uses of trees with a sense of pride. For
example, they seemed proud of their medicinal knowledge about trees as well as the selfsufficiency that this knowledge provides. One participant put it this way: “You guys use
injections. Us, we treat many sicknesses using trees...Because a lot of your injections were
developed by taking tree bark, making it in the laboratory, and then turning it into injections to
cure people. Us, we don’t have laboratories but we make the medicine ourselves using trees.
These are good medicines” (P16). Similarly, participants often talked about tree-foods with
enthusiasm, and were excited to teach me about new species that I had not heard of. They also
explained that in the past, tree-foods allowed people to survive lean periods on their own. One
key informant (a resident of a nearby village) was optimistic about planting orchards as a way of
reducing the tendency of young men to migrate away to find work: “Children of Senegal, many
travel, they’re in America or Italy. But they can stay here and work. What we have in soil, if we
work it well, they won’t go to America. There’s no soil better than Senegalese soil...if we
planted some trees here, we wouldn’t be poor any longer” (KI4). This sense of pride and
independence associated with trees was expressed in many interviews and conversations. While
trees provide tangible services (e.g. food and medicine) that promote self-sufficiency, the feeling
of independence that this engenders is a non-material cultural service of trees.
Planting trees as a legacy
Planting trees is a way for individuals to leave their mark on the landscape and provide an
inheritance for future generations. During interviews, several participants pointed to trees in
their compounds and named the deceased person who had planted them. Trees thus serve as a
62
sort of informal memorial to those who planted them. Similarly, participants often spoke of
planting trees to benefit future generations, such as by providing them with an “edible legacy”:
“If you transplant a mango today, if you don’t eat its fruit, your kids will. If your kids don’t eat
it, your grandchildren will. You know that’s good” (P1). In this way, tree-planting can provide
a sense of fulfillment in knowing that one has provided something for others while creating a
legacy.
3.2 Negative perceptions of trees
In addition to tree services, participants identified several ways in which trees can be
undesirable. These include trees’ potential to provide habitat for dangerous or destructive
animals, fall on people or property, provide hiding places for bandits, or house bad spirits.
Azadirachta indica was frequently singled out as an undesirable species for several reasons,
including allelopathy, lack of fruit, and excessive leaf litter that dirties compounds.
Habitat for dangerous or destructive animals
Trees are sometimes associated with undesirable animals. Several older participants
recalled the dense forest of their youth as a scary place, where they were afraid to walk alone
because of wild animals like hyenas (P7, P14, P15, P17). Today, hyenas have been extirpated
from the area but animals such as monkeys, monitor lizards, jackals, genets birds, and snakes
still present problems for local people. Monkeys sometimes use the silvo-pastoral zone as
habitat and do damage to farmers’ crop fields and gardens. Jackals, genets and monitor lizards
occasionally prey upon chickens, although lizards are also valued for bush meat. Birds eat
planted seeds or sorghum and millet off the stalk prior to harvest; in my agroforestry work I
talked to several farmers who were worried about trees in fields attracting birds. Several species
of poisonous snakes pose a threat to village people and livestock and there is a widely held
63
perception that certain species of trees and shrubs attract snakes, especially Jatropha curcas and
Euphorbia balsamifera. For this reason, these are not planted in or near household compounds.
Thus trees are sometimes seen as providing habitat to harmful animals.
Figure 3.2: A dead genet caught trying to eat a Sama Ndiayenne resident’s chickens.
Trees can fall on people or property
Trees sometimes fall during storms and can do damage if they are located in compounds
where there are buildings and people (P17). Adansonia digitata trees, which were traditionally
planted in and around household compounds, are perceived as being the most dangerous,
especially in cases when an investment has been made in building a cement structure. During my
two years in Sama Ndiayenne, I witnessed three separate instances of felling of Adansonia
digitata trees in order to protect new cement buildings.
64
Trees can provide hiding places for bandits
One participant mentioned that he feared traveling through dense forest because of the
risk of banditry (P17). I was told of one case of local banditry during my two years, which took
place in a silvo-pastoral zone between the study area and Kaolack. While banditry is not
currently a major problem, the perception of dense forest and shrubs as a potential hide-out for
thugs is worth noting.
Some trees are associated with djinne
Some trees are associated with spirits, or djinne, that can be harmful to humans. Djinne
are associated with individual trees, especially older individuals of particular species such as
Ficus gnaphalocarpa. I became aware of this perception one day when I saw that an ancient
Ficus gnaphalocarpa had been cut down on a piece of land owned by a French expatriate in
Keur Sosse. I told a Senegalese friend that I thought it was sad to see such an old tree killed. He
said that in his opinion, this was not sad because the tree had been home to a djinne. In fact, he
said, most people were happy that the Frenchman had cut it down, but no one would have cut it
themselves for fear that the djinne would retaliate. A participant in Sama Ndiayenne confirmed
that djinne could use violence or arson against those who cut their trees. It is worth noting that
only certain Ficus gnaphalocarpa trees are considered to harbor djinne, while other trees, such as
the one that serves as a penc in Sama Ndiayenne, do not.
Azadirachta indica was singled out as an undesirable species
Rarely is a good word ever said about Azadirachta indica. Though this exotic species
was extensively planted around households and in some fields with government encouragement
until the 1980s, today most people intentionally kill volunteer seedlings and in some cases have
cut the trees down. Several participants cited Azadirachta indica’s allelopathy as a reason for
65
removing it; it is perceived to inhibit the growth of nearby trees, especially mango (P10, P16,
P17). Furthermore, it is common to hear complaints about its lack of edible fruit and constant
leaf fall which must be swept up to keep the household area clean. However, one participant
argued that the species fulfills an important role: “Azadirachta indica is also important to raise.
Because if you have two Azadirachta indica trees in your courtyard, each year you can make the
frame for a hut roof. You cut the branches and use them to make a frame. People say
Azadirachta indica is bad, but it’s nonetheless a necessary tree” (P16). Despite this, during
interviews and my work in agroforestry I noticed that most people had negative views of
Azadirachta indica.
3.3 Perceptions of deforestation and its drivers
Interviews with participants helped describe the deforestation phenomenon as it is
perceived by local people. Participants described large-scale loss of trees in the area over the past
80 years and identified a number of species in particular that have declined or disappeared. They
also identified a number of direct and indirect causes of deforestation. In order to better
understand and explain these causes, or “drivers of deforestation,” I group them into thematic
categories following the conceptual framework of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
(Alcamo and Bennett 2003). Direct drivers of deforestation identified by participants include
changes in land use and cover, technology adaptation and use and natural drivers such as wind
and termites. Indirect drivers of deforestation identified by participants include economic and
cultural factors.
3.3.1 Deforestation and species decline
Participants described declining tree cover in the study area, suggesting a widely held
perception of deforestation and forest degradation. Participants were asked to respond to
66
questions about changes in tree cover in terms of what they had witnessed during the time they
had lived in the area, which ranged from 80 years to just a few months. Nearly all participants
described an overall decline in trees (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P9, P10, P13, P14, P15, P16,
P17), though some identified local pockets where trees have increased, such as specific orchards
or in households. (The major exceptions were two young women who had recently married into
the village and described an overall increase in trees, though they also said there was a lack of
trees to meet firewood needs.) Several older people described the forest of their youth as
covering a much greater area than it does today: “when I was a kid [25-40 years ago] the shrubforest was just behind this house” (P7). Similarly: “when I was a kid [35-50 years ago], if you
wanted wood, you could get it right here, behind the house, you’d have plenty...there were trees
all around” (P4). By way of contrast, today villagers in Sama Ndiayenne often walk over a
kilometer before reaching a sufficiently wooded area for collecting firewood. Participants also
described the silvo-pastoral zone as being much denser than it is today: “it was dark inside [the
forest] . You had to push stuff out of the way to go your way” (P4). Similarly: “There was a
time when there were many trees...In those days the forest was so dense you’d be afraid to go
there alone. Now, all those trees have died” (P15). These comments suggest a widespread
perception of deforestation and forest degradation in the study area.
Participants also identified several tree species as declining or disappearing in the study
area. Altogether, participants mentioned 20 species as declining or disappearing, though only
eight species were mentioned in at least three separate interviews (see Table 3.4). It is notable
that six of the eight species are classified as belonging in the higher-rainfall Guinea vegetation
zone according to Gonzalez (2001). Some species were mentioned more often than others; for
example Cordyla pinnata was mentioned as declining by nine participants whereas Pterocarpus
67
erinaceus and Lannea acida were each mentioned by three. These differences do not necessarily
reflect a difference in the degree to which the species have declined (indeed Cordyla pinnata is
extant whereas Pterocarpus erinaceus has been extirpated in the study area). Rather, they may
reflect a number of other factors that affect the salience of the species in people’s minds, such as
its usefulness. Indeed, all of the tree species mentioned are used for food, firewood, wood, etc.,
while there may be other tree species that have also declined but were not mentioned at all
because they lack uses. However, the fact that these species were mentioned in at least three
separate interviews suggests that they have indeed declined. Thus the list below can best be
thought of as a sample of tree species that have both declined and are important to local people.
Table 3.4: Species identified as declining or disappearing in at least three separate
interviews, with vegetation zones according to Gonzalez (2001).
Latin name
English name
Wolof name
Vegetation zone
Adansonia digitata
Baobab
Gui
Sudan
Cordyla pinnata
Bush mango
Dimbu
Guinea
Detarium
Tallow tree
Danq
Guinea
microcarpum
Ficus gnaphalocarpa
Soto
Guinea
Mangifera indica
Mango
Mango
Sudan
Parkia biglobosa
Nete
Guinea
Lannea acida
Soon
Guinea
Pterocarpus erinaceus African rosewood
Win
Guinea
3.3.2 Direct drivers of deforestation
Changes in land use and cover
Participants identified changes in land use and cover that contributed to deforestation,
including increased cutting for firewood and timber, agricultural expansion, and field-burning.
Increased cutting of trees for firewood was the most often cited cause of deforestation in the area
(P1, P2, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P10, P13, P14, P15, P16). Older participants recounted collecting
dead wood for firewood in their youth, whereas today most firewood is cut from live trees.
68
Several participants mentioned illegal timber extraction as a cause of deforestation, particularly
the cutting of valuable timber species such as Cordyla pinnata and Pterocarpus erinaceus.
Agricultural expansion was also frequently mentioned as a contributor to deforestation (P7, P8,
P13, P16, P17). Many participants described large-scale land clearing and the conversion of
forest into agriculture fields. The expansion of agriculture is indeed readily visible; when
ground-truthing satellite photos that were a year and a half old, I discovered a newly-cleared
section of the silvo-pastoral zone. Several participants also cited the specific agricultural practice
of field burning to clear debris before planting, which can lead to uncontrolled fires that burn and
kill trees (P4, P15). I also witnessed the widespread practice of field-burning. Thus, cutting
trees for fuel and timber, agricultural expansion, and field-burning were widely perceived as
direct drivers of deforestation.
Technology adaptation and use
Participants perceived two technologies in particular as contributing to deforestation:
animal-drawn ploughs and chainsaws. Several participants explained that using horses and other
animals to plow fields was uncommon 50 to 60 years ago, but the introduction of ploughs has
contributed to deforestation (P3, P8, P13, P17). One participant provided a succinct explanation
for the damage done by ploughs: “the reason why [trees] have decreased is that people first cut
them for firewood, and left the base, but then when farming the base was uprooted by the plow.
If you just cut a tree with a machete, it will grow back [coppice]. Like Piliostigma reticulatum.
But many trees are almost gone now. Because they were cut down and uprooted” (P13).
Similarly, a couple of participants cited chainsaw use by outsiders illegally cutting timber for
commercial use (P10, P16). They said that this was a problem in the past and continues to pose a
threat. Thus the use of ploughs and chainsaws are perceived as direct contributors to the decline
69
in trees.
Natural drivers
Participants also identified natural forces as directly contributing to the decline in trees.
These included termite damage, disease, lightning, wind damage, and drought (P5, P6, P10, P14,
P15, P16).
Interestingly, only one participant mentioned decreased rainfall as a driver of
deforestation though many had discussed trees’ effect on precipitation (discussed in the previous
section). Thus natural causes were perceived as a significant driver of deforestation, through
there was variation in the specific natural mechanisms seen as important.
3.3.3 Indirect drivers of deforestation
Economic drivers
Participants identified indirect economic contributors to deforestation such as newly
available goods that substitute for tree services and the commercial demand for firewood. An
older interview participant explained that the many provisioning services of trees used to ensure
they would not be cut down, but that this is changing. He gave the example of Adansonia
digitata, which was highly valued for medicine, rope, and fruit, but is now frequently cut in order
to make way for new cement buildings because commercially-produced medicines, synthetic
ropes, and other fruits are available (P4). Another participant identified a different substitute
good as an indirect contributor to deforestation: “Toilets. We didn’t have them. If you wanted
to go to the toilet you went to the forest. That’s why we used to protect it. There were lots of
shrubs and if you went inside no one would see you...But now, every household has a toilet.
That’s why there has been a decrease in trees in there” (P17). This explanation is supported by a
contrasting example: in a village nearby that was surrounded by cashew orchards and forest,
there were no latrines despite a similar level of accessibility and wealth as the villages in the
70
study area; people simply used the forest as a toilet. Several female participants also discussed
commercial cutting of firewood, particularly by men and bread oven operators, as an economic
contributor to deforestation (P2, P12). These views were supported by observation. One cart of
firewood from a typical species such as Combretum glutinosum sold for 2,000-3,000 Francs
(USD 4-6); two men could collect this amount in a day and earn an attractive sum of money by
village standards. Similarly, bread baking requires a significant amount of firewood, especially
as bread consumption grows. Bread is popular during holidays and as a breakfast food among
those who can afford it, and so as incomes rise, bread consumption (and subsequent firewood
use) has been rising too. Thus, participants identified economic factors as significant drivers of
deforestation.
Cultural drivers of deforestation
Several participants identified cultural changes as contributing to the decline of trees. An
older woman claimed that firewood cutting had increased along with society-wide neediness:
“back then we didn’t cut firewood as much. People didn’t have as many needs. Now, people
have many needs. If people had a little bit, they were satisfied, and they helped those who had
nothing. But now there are many needs and little wisdom” (P1). It is likely that she was
referring to those who cut firewood for sale in order to earn cash. Similarly, an older man said
that the traditional practice of planting trees such as Adansonia digitata had died out because of
laziness among the younger generation (P7). Several other participants emphasized that people
did not value trees as much as they should because they had forgotten or simply did not know
about their usefulness (P8, P9, P15). One young man explained: “We didn’t know about the
usefulness of trees. We didn’t respect them. We cut them. That’s the only thing that caused the
decline [in trees]” (P8). Thus, several participants viewed cultural attitudes and lack of
71
knowledge as important in contributing to the decline in trees.
3.4 Local ideas about strategies to combat deforestation
Interview participants identified a variety of potential strategies for combatting
deforestation, which at the most general level can be grouped as strategies to plant trees and
strategies to reduce tree cutting. Participants often identified multiple mutually-reinforcing
strategies, and some strategies could be said to fall into both categories (e.g. planting cashew
orchards can reduce tree cutting because cashew branches can be pruned and substitute for
firewood from the silvo-pastoral zone). However, I have tried to disentangle the concepts in
order to convey participants’ ideas more clearly.
3.4.1 Strategies to plant trees
Planting more trees was the most frequently identified strategy for combatting
deforestation. This was identified by ten participants (P1, P4, P6, P7, P8, P9, P13, P14, P15,
P16). Specifically, participants discussed planting trees with uses for fruit, timber, and livefencing, and they primarily advocated planting trees on private rather than public land.
Participants had a clear preference for planting trees with uses for fruit, and also for
timber and live-fencing as a strategy to combat deforestation. Mentioned for planting by at least
three participants were fruit species such as Mangifera indica, Psidium guajava, Anacardium
occidentale, and Carica papaya; timber trees such as Eucalyptus camaldulensis; and live-fencing
species such as Acacia mellifera and Prosopis julliflora. I noted strong local interest in planting
all of these species as well as the fruits Citrus spp., Musa acuminata, and Phoenix dactylifera,
and the fruit and live-fencing species Zizyphus mauritiana during my work in agroforestry. It is
noteworthy that all of these fruit species are sold in local and national markets; participants did
not mention planting native non-commercial fruits such as Cordyla pinnata, Parkia biglobosa,
72
Tamarindus indica and others discussed earlier in this chapter. Similarly, participants did not
mention planting trees specifically for medicinal use. While planting trees specifically for
firewood or windbreaks was not mentioned, several participants noted that Anacardium
occidentale also produces good firewood and that fruit trees on the perimeter could help protect
the village from wind (P16, P6, P13). Thus, there was widespread support among participants
for planting useful trees primarily for fruit, timber, and live fencing, as a strategy to combat
deforestation.
When participants mentioned planting trees, they nearly always discussed doing so on
private lands, primarily in agricultural fields (P1, P6, P7, P8, P9, P13, P14, P15, P16). Only two
participants mentioned planting trees in the common silvo-pastoral zone (P1, P15). The reason
for planting trees on private land, as one participant explained, is that they are less likely to be
cut: “But if it were cashews, then you would own it yourself, and no one would cut it. No one
cuts my mango tree. No one cuts my cashew wood. But in the forest, people cut the wood, and
sell it” (P7). In other words, the provisioning services of trees can more easily be captured by
the planter if he/she has tenure over the land. Participants’ overwhelming preference for planting
trees in privately owned fields suggests that agroforestry options are preferred to reforestation of
public land as a strategy to combat deforestation.
3.4.2 Strategies to reduce tree cutting
Participants identified strategies to reduce tree cutting including management of the
silvo-pastoral zone, stricter law enforcement, and reducing demand for wood (such as through
wood substitutes). Several participants suggested management of the silvo-pastoral zone in
order to combat deforestation, including controls on cutting and instituting a rotational system
for harvesting stands (P1, P2, P5, P6, P11, P12). However, one participant was opposed to the
73
idea of protecting any part of the silvo-pastoral zone because she feared there would not be
enough firewood in the remaining area (P15). All but one of the participants who advocated
management (as well as the one who opposed it) were female; it is possible that women are more
concerned with the state of the silvo-pastoral zone because they depend on its firewood for
cooking. Several participants also suggested stricter law enforcement by the Forest Service to
protect trees in agricultural fields and in the silvo-pastoral zone (P2, P10, P15). Finally, several
participants suggested reducing wood consumption by finding alternative products (P1, P2, P6,
P10, P17). These included metal furniture, gas stoves, and improved wood-burning stoves.
Thus participants viewed managing public land, stricter law enforcement, and reducing demand
for wood as potential strategies to reduce tree cutting and thereby combat deforestation.
74
Chapter 4: Discussion
This chapter examines the implications of this case study’s findings for extension agents
or organizations working with trees in the study area. I address issues for local-level extension
agents rather than high-level policy makers because of the limited geographical scope this study.
Personally, I think that local people have the potential to solve many of their problems on their
own, and outside actors’ help may not be necessary in combatting deforestation. That said, here
I will assume that extension agents or organizations exist, and that their work can be improved if
they are provided with better information. Extension agents working to combat deforestation
locally could be more effective if they are aware of and learn from local ideas and perceptions
about trees, deforestation, and strategies to combat deforestation.
4.1 Implications of perceptions of tree services
It is necessary to take into account the types of tree services and specific tree species that
people value in order for extension agents to identify appropriate tree species to promote.
Participants most frequently identified food, medicine, firewood, and timber as important tree
services. They identified a broad variety of trees that provide these services, including many
indigenous species. However, when discussing tree species to plant, participants focused on a
narrow range of introduced species that principally provide food and timber (and may serve
secondarily as firewood), such as Mangifera indica, Anacardium occidentale, Psidium guajava,
and Eucalyptus camaldulensis. These are also commercially valuable and relatively fastgrowing species. It is possible that there is less interest in planting indigenous species because
they are not as commercially valuable and have slower rates of growth and longer juvenile
periods. Furthermore, many of the traditionally-valued native species belong to the Guinean
vegetation zone, which has been shifting southward over the past half century as rainfall has
75
declined, and so they are not as suitable in the area as they used to be (Gonzalez 2001 and
Maranz 2009). Because of local interest in commercially valuable fruit and timber species,
these trees will need to be the focus of extension work in the area.
Despite their limitations, indigenous species can still play a role in extension work.
Extension agents are often more interested in promoting indigenous species, because of their
biodiversity value, than local people are in planting them (KI1). However, in other parts of the
Sahel farming communities have come to highly prize certain locally indigenous species due to
their successful commercialization. In Uganda and elsewhere in the eastern Sahel, shea butter
from Vitellaria paradoxa is marketed in urban centers and internationally, and processing takes
place at the local level using simple roasting and pressing technologies. In Senegal, there have
been attempts to process and market netetou, a paste made from fruit of Parkia biglobosa, which
grows in the study area. However, this product faces stiff competition from Maggi bouillon
cubes, which limit its profitability (Boffa 1999). Given the many uses that exist, it may be
worthwhile to further investigate the commercial potential of other indigenous species that grow
in the area, especially ones with medicinal or other uses that can be accessed without killing the
tree. Also, the pride evident among many participants while discussing indigenous species and
their food and medicinal uses (what I have termed a “cultural service” of these trees) suggests
that there may be interest in growing some of them on a small scale. Extension agents might try
incorporating a few indigenous trees in order to increase interest and enthusiasm for tree-planting
projects among villagers.
The results also reveal that people are aware of some of the benefits of trees for growing
vegetables and field crops. As some participants noted, trees can decrease wind speeds, which in
turn can mitigate soil erosion and desiccation of crops. Similarly, people recognize the benefit of
76
trees’ shade for certain crops that are sensitive to the sun; for example it is common to see
peppers being grown under trees. People also recognized the importance of trees in regulating
the hydrologic cycle. While scientific studies have not produced clear conclusions about the
effect of local tree cover on rainfall in the Sahel, it has been shown that trees can increase topsoil
moisture in most cases through their shade (though rainfall interception may reverse the effect in
light rains) (Boffa 1999). Thus, there is some local awareness of the potential benefits of trees in
agriculture.
However, the results suggest that there is a lack of awareness about some of the other
ways that trees can benefit crops. Trees do indeed have the potential to benefit crops in a variety
of ways, though the case for this should not be over-stated. Trees can increase soil fertility
through increased microbial activity due to higher levels of organic matter and the microclimate
provided by trees (Boffa 1999). Woody legumes may also fix nitrogen, though Dommergues
(1987) suggests that nitrogen fixation in the Sahel is lower than expected because trees nodulate
at an early age but lose nodules with maturity, and because phosphorus levels in soils are
generally low. To some degree, soil fertility found under trees is due to dung deposition from
birds and livestock, who prefer to sit under the shade during the hot season (Kessler and Breman
1991). Of course, trees can compete with crops for light, water, and nutrients. Nonetheless,
competition can be minimized and beneficial effects maximized by selecting tree species that
have taproots (reducing roots spread towards crops), by planting crops in east-west alleys
(reducing shade), and by pruning trees and reincorporating organic matter into the soil (reducing
shade and ensuring nutrient recycling). One species that is found in the study area, Faidherbia
albida, has unique benefits for crops due to its reverse leaf phenology; it loses its leaves during
the summer rainy months and thus does not shade crops or draw much water or nutrients at that
77
time. Many studies have shown that Faidherbia albida increases crop yields, in some cases up
to 100%, though its effects on grains like millet are more positive than its effects on peanuts. It
has been suggested that a typical “critical canopy cover” for agroforestry tree parklands in the
Sahel to be maximally productive is 15% (Boffa 1999). If this is the case, then there is potential
for many more trees in fields in the study area, though extension agents should be careful not to
over-state the benefits of trees for crops.
The results also suggest that extension agents could better inform local people about the
nutritional benefits of certain tree foods, particularly Moringa oleifera. Moringa leaves are welldocumented to be an excellent source of Vitamin A, calcium, iron, Vitamin C, and potassium
(Fahey 2005). In the study area, Moringa is indeed valued for food; it is often planted in
people’s compounds and eaten with millet. However, its leaves are typically heavily-cooked or
dried in the sun, which can substantially decrease their nutritional value. In Senegal, Peace
Corps Volunteers in the health sector have been spreading awareness about the importance of
shade-drying Moringa in order to increase its nutritional value; these activities would be
worthwhile in the study area.
4.2 Implications of negative perceptions of trees
It is important for extension agents to recognize some of the negative cultural
associations of certain trees. While outsiders sometimes think of the spirits associated with trees
as a positive “spiritual value” (Boffa 1999), the results of this study suggest that local people do
not always see them this way. Indeed, people were glad that a tree said to house a djinne was cut
down. That said, some species not considered here may have positive spiritual values in the
local area. Extension agents should research potential negative and positive associations
attached to tree species if cultural values are a desired outcome of tree-planting projects.
78
It is also important to recognize the widely-held negative perceptions of Azadirachta
indica. Participants cited its allelopathy (particularly inhibiting mangos) and leaf litter as
negative aspects of this species. I was unable to find scholarly articles regarding Azadirachta
indica’s allelopathic interactions with other trees, though several studies have shown the
compound azadirachtin, which is extracted from the tree, inhibits seed germination of crop
species (e.g. Salam and Kato-Nuguchi 2010). Azadirachta also has the potential to be invasive in
the Sahel, especially on “rocky, lateritic, and shallow soils” in areas with low rainfall (Boffa
1999, 36).
Still, the species has some uses that participants seemed unaware of. For example,
its seeds can be pressed for oil that serves as an organic pesticide, and the oil cake can serve as a
fertilizer (von Maydell 1990). Local dislike of Azadirachta and its potential invasiveness
suggest that extension agents should not try to encourage people to plant more of it in the area,
but they may wish to inform local people about alternative ways existing trees can be used.
The perception that trees can attract dangerous or destructive animals is also noteworthy.
Species such as Jatropha curcas and Euphorbia balsamifera are widely perceived to attract
snakes; it would be inadvisable for extension agents to encourage people to plant these in or near
household compounds. The perception that trees in fields attract birds which then eat crops is a
legitimate concern, though it does not seem to be a primary worry of farmers at this point and it
should be considered in conjunction with the potential benefits of trees in fields. Likewise,
concerns about restoration of the forest attracting wildlife that can damage crops or prey upon
chickens, like monkeys, jackals and monitor lizards, should be taken into account along with the
potential benefits of planting more trees. Concerns about large and dangerous wildlife like
hyenas are less common, and probably less realistic since these species have been extirpated
from most surrounding areas.
79
4.3 Implications of perceptions of deforestation and its drivers
The results suggest that most local people are aware of the large-scale deforestation that
has occurred in the area and this is not something about which they need to be “sensitized.”
Indeed, the deforestation trend described by participants is consistent with land cover trends in
the Saloum region from the 1960s to 2000 described by Tappan et al. (2004). Similarly, the
decline of Guinea-zone vegetation (see Table 3.4) described by participants is similar to largescale trends in the Sahel region described by Gonzalez (2001) and Maranz (2009). Participants
mentioned many of the widely recognized direct drivers of deforestation such as agricultural
expansion, cutting for firewood, and agricultural burning. However, they left out some indirect
drivers of deforestation such as population increase and climatic change (i.e. consistently
decreasing rainfall since the 1960s), which have been identified as important regionally (Boffa
1999). Perhaps participants did not discuss these drivers because they are less direct and visible,
though this is not to say that they were unaware of them. It is also possible that they did not
mention these drivers because their significance has been small compared to agricultural clearing
in the Kaolack/ Saloum region, as suggested by Tappan et al. (2004). In any case, there seems
little need for outside actors to educate local people about deforestation; this is something they
are (often painfully) aware of.
Rather, extension agents can learn from local people about locally important drivers of
deforestation. One noteworthy unusual observation was that the introduction of latrines has led
people to cut trees in the vicinity of the village, because they no longer valued the trees for
privacy while using the “toilet” in the bush. Many development organizations (including the
Peace Corps) support latrine construction in Senegal, though they may not have considered the
impact this has on trees. This study suggests that this topic is worthy of further investigation.
80
The idea that substitute products such as medicines decrease the importance of trees to local
people is similar, though for the time being it seems that many people use tree-medicines in
conjunction with the government health system. The near-exclusive use of the declining species
Cordyla pinnata in bread ovens, coupled with the fact that bread is becoming more popular as
incomes rise, suggests that extension agents may want to focus on this problem. For example,
extension agents could work with bread bakers to find alternative fuel sources or construct more
efficient ovens. Thus, recognizing locally perceived drivers of deforestation will be highly
important to extension agents seeking to combat the problem.
4.4 Implications of local ideas about strategies to combat deforestation
This study has showed that planting trees on private land is a widely favored strategy for
combatting deforestation. Local people are particularly interested in planting orchards, and
extension agents can help them to do this. Mangifera indica and Anacardium occidentale are
probably the most appropriate species, since they can be grown in the area without irrigation,
whereas species such as Carica papaya, Psidium guajava, and Citrus spp. typically require
irrigation in order to be productive. There was also some interest in growing Eucalyptus
camaldulensis, which could be grown on separate woodlots because of its potential for
allelopathy and water competition with crops due to its extensive lateral roots.
There is also potential for the agroforestry technique of live fencing in the area. Several
interview participants mentioned live fencing as a benefit of trees, and it was one of my most
successful areas of work as an agroforestry extension agent. Live fences can be combined with
fruit trees to function as barriers and protect orchards, which is important because livestock
grazing is a significant reason for fruit sapling mortality in the area. During my work I also
81
noticed that people desired live fencing to keep other villagers out of their fields; cashew fruits
(though not the nut) are often treated as common property and so orchard owners felt that
enclosing the field would be the best way to limit outside access to the trees.
The study also suggests the potential for extension agents to work with local people to
establish windbreaks. Though I only worked with one farmer on a windbreak project, the
perception that trees reduce wind appears fairly common. Thus there may be significant local
interest in planting windbreaks to protect fields or households.
The research suggests that the agroforestry technique of alley-cropping is unlikely to be
adopted by many local people in the near future. Though people recognized some of the
potential benefits of planting trees in fields for gardens and field crops, they did not recognize
others, particularly the soil benefits. If extension agents wish to work with local people on alleycropping projects, they may need to provide local people with more information or, preferably,
on-site demonstrations that illustrate these benefits. Alley cropping can also take place in newlyestablished orchards before canopy closure, since this has the added benefit of controlling weeds
and promoting regular maintenance of tree protection for saplings.
Given that planting trees on private land is a favored strategy for combating
deforestation, extension agents should be aware of how land tenure issues affect tree planting.
Land availability was shown to be the factor most closely associated with agroforestry adoption
in Tambacounda, Senegal (Caveness and Kurtz 1993). Tree planting is less common on rented
or borrowed land because tenancy is insecure but also because tree-planting has traditionally
been used as a way to lay claim to a piece of land. As a result, land owners typically don’t allow
borrowers or renters to plant trees on their land (Boffa 1999). At the same time, women
typically have less secure tenancy than men because they access land through their husbands and
82
usually do not hold the official title. Similarly, young men who travel to the cities to work may
risk (or perceive that they risk) tenure to land, since under law land that is uncultivated by the
user for three years may be re-allocated by the rural community government. Indeed, Caveness
and Kurtz (1993) found that the number of young men in the household positively correlated
with agroforestry adoption. These factors should be taken into consideration by extension agents
in the study area. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Toucouleur villages of Fas Toucouleur and Fas
Gueladio have more land and young men present than the Wolof village of Sama Ndiayenne. In
my experience, I found that farmers from the Toucouleur villages were more interested in
planting trees than the Sama Ndiayenne villagers. Future extension agents in the study area
should be open to working with all people but keep in mind that many potential work partners
may be found in Toucouleur villages due to land tenure issues.
Another important strategy to combat deforestation that was suggested by many
participants was active management of the silvo-pastoral zone shared by the three villages. This
is something that extension agents could help local people work on, though the strategy also
faces some important obstacles. One obstacle is the age-old “tragedy of the commons,” or
“social dilemma” problem, where collective interests (conserving the firewood resource) are at
odds with private interests (collecting enough firewood for one’s household). Ostrom (1998)
suggests that social dilemmas are solved most often when relationships of trust exist and there is
frequent contact between individuals so that reputations are at stake. The existence of several
well-functioning village institutions indicate the presence of these factors in the study area. For
example, the village women’s groups and mosque funds discussed in Chapter 1 are built around
trusting relationships and there is daily face-to-face interaction between people of the same
village. However, a study of community forest groups around the world has shown that the
83
most important factor for success is the existence of social institutions that regularly enforce
rules (Gibson et al. 2005). The village women’s groups and the mosque funds in the study area
are not primarily rule-enforcing institutions, so their capabilities may not transfer well to
managing forest resources. Moreover, the groups do not extend between villages and the
villages have little social overlap, which limits the degree of trust and established relationships
necessary for successful management as cited by Ostrom. One former Forest Service officer
who I interviewed was very pessimistic about the villagers’ ability to manage forests on their
own because he thought they would be unable to cooperate (KI3). Thus, local people may
encounter difficulties in overcoming the social dilemma inherent in managing the shared silvopastoral zone.
Community forestry also faces unique legal and political problems within Senegal.
Despite the new Forestry Code of 1998, the extent to which communities have assumed
responsibilities over their forests has been limited. Generally, management plans have only been
drawn up in areas where donor assistance has funded the necessary impact studies (such as in the
Dankou forest in the Kaffrine region). Most community forests remain without management
plans and therefore are under de facto control of the Forest Service, which has been reluctant to
cede its control (Poteete and Ribot 2011). Several communities near the study area initiated
proceedings to establish a community forest in 2006, but were not granted responsibilities for
forest management until 2013 (KI4). Moreover, community forest management in Senegal has
largely been focused on commercial charcoal production on large tracts of land where forests are
in good condition. The silvo-pastoral zone in the study area, by contrast, is quite degraded and
relatively small (only about 55 hectares in the main section), and local people are interested in
management for local firewood collection, not commercial charcoal production. Additionally,
84
the area’s current legal designation prevents any live firewood cutting (although this activity is
widespread) and it would have to be reclassified as forest land for formal management to take
place (KI2). These political and legal challenges suggest that managing the silvo-pastoral zone
would be difficult.
Likewise, some participants suggested that better law enforcement could play a role in
combatting deforestation, though the role that an extension agent could play in this is unclear.
Law enforcement depends on the Forest Service officers based in the arrondissement Ndiedieng,
though local guards could be organized. However, it seemed that most people were unaware that
under the law, live firewood collection in the silvo-pastoral zone is illegal. Because the law goes
against local practices, better law enforcement may not be a practical solution.
Extension agents should take seriously participants’ suggestion that alternatives to wood
would help reduce firewood cutting and combat deforestation. Alternative cooking fuels are one
possibility, though gas is expensive and would have to be heavily subsidized or free in order for
people to use it. Improved wood-burning stoves, which can reduce fuel use and smoke, are
another option. Before this strategy is pursued, field-testing of potential stove models should be
performed in order to ensure that they enhance efficiency; an open fire can be more efficient than
a poorly designed stove (Bryden 2005).
4.5 Exogenous ideas for strategies to combat deforestation
Though local ideas should help direct extension agents’ efforts, agents may also wish to
introduce strategies to combat deforestation not discussed by participants. One potential strategy
is known as “farmer managed natural regeneration,” or FMNR. This technique is based on
traditional practices in many parts of the Sahel, though agroforestry extension agents began
promoting it in the 1980s in Niger with remarkable success. The technique was adopted in
85
response to the often low survival rates of out-planted seedlings instead focusing on protecting
natural regeneration and pruning existing “trees” in agricultural fields that have been repeatedly
cut back and coppiced, in order to promote the development of an apical stem and decrease
shading of crops(Boffa 1999). This strategy has recently been promoted by the international
NGO World Vision in the Kaffrine region of Senegal, where the focus has been on the species
Combretum glutinosum, Guiera senegalensis, and Piliostigma reticulatum, with high levels of
adoption. However, a drawback to this strategy is that one must work with the extant species in
the area, which are often not the most desirable (Gates 2012).
A second possible exogenous strategy to combat deforestation is a program of fire
control. Several participants recognized burning of agricultural fields and escaped fires as a
driver of deforestation, though none discussed controlling fire as a solution. Fire control is
widely recommended in Sahelian environments due to the damage fire can inflict on trees (Boffa
1999, KI1, KI2). Extension agents could encourage farmers in the area to stop burning their
fields, though convincing them may be difficult since field burning provides a quick release of
phosphorus and potassium into the soil in preparation for planting field crops. Another possible
strategy could be to work with local people to reduce dangerous fuels near trees, create fire
breaks, and burn fields in a safer manner.
Finally, livestock management or culling could also serve to combat deforestation. As
mentioned previously, livestock grazing is a frequent cause of tree seedling mortality in the area,
especially for planted fruit trees. Reducing livestock numbers is one possible strategy against
this problem, though local people may be reluctant to do this since livestock are a preferred form
of investment and rams hold special importance in the celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid alAdha. Managing livestock through stall-feeding is another option. This has the potential to
86
increase the rate of weight-gain among livestock, but requires considerably more work on the
part of livestock owners. However, planting live-fences may prove to be the most effective way
to exclude livestock from fields.
87
Chapter 5: Conclusion
Deforestation in Senegal’s Peanut Basin has been well documented, but what should be
done to combat the problem is often unclear. It seems that outside actors such as extension
agents or organizations often implement strategies to combat deforestation without sufficiently
taking into account local people’s perceptions and ideas regarding the problem. This study has
made a small attempt to correct this error by describing the perceptions and ideas of local people
in a small geographical region within the Peanut Basin. It has described local people’s
perceptions of the services provided by trees, the negative aspects of trees, and deforestation
trends and drivers; furthermore, it has presented local people’s ideas about strategies to combat
deforestation.
The study shows that local people perceive numerous provisioning, regulating, and
cultural services of trees, as well as some ways in which trees can have negative effects.
Participants described a wide variety of provisioning tree services such as food, medicine,
firewood, timber, fiber for rope, delineation and protection of property, privacy, and fodder.
They identified regulation of the hydrologic cycle, provision of shade and reduction of wind as
important regulating services of trees. I also noticed seeveral non-material “cultural services” of
trees, such as people’s sense of pride in their knowledge about native trees and their uses, and
valuation of trees as a way to leave behind a legacy for future generations. Participants also
identified some negative aspects of trees such as their potential to: provide habitat for harmful
animals (or hiding places for bandits), fall on people or property, house bad spirits, and interact
allelopathically with other vegetation. Thus trees were perceived in a variety of positive and
negative ways.
88
This study also provides an account of deforestation and its drivers from the perspective
of local people. Participants described large-scale deforestation and forest degradation in the
area over the past 80 years and identified some of the species that have been most impacted.
They identified a number of direct drivers such as changes in land use, including agricultural
expansion and increased firewood cutting; technology adaptation and use, such as ploughs and
chainsaws; and natural forces. They also suggested indirect economic drivers, such as newly
available goods that substitute for tree services and commercial demand for firewood. Several
participants also identified cultural drivers, including changing attitudes and lack of knowledge
about tree uses and values, as important contributors to the decline in trees. In these ways, the
study has helped describe the nature of the deforestation problem as seen by local people.
The study documents some local ideas about what strategies should be taken to combat
deforestation. Many participants identified planting trees on private land as a good course of
action. There was also significant interest in managing the communal silvo-pastoral zone to
control cutting. Several participants also suggested stricter law enforcement and finding
alternatives to firewood. Thus, the study has helped to identify local ideas about what strategies
will work in the effort against deforestation.
Based on the study’s findings, a number of recommendations can be made to extension
agents and organizations working in the area. Some of the most significant are:
•
In order to identify tree species to promote, extension agents could keep in mind
both the specific tree species people indicate they want to plant as well as the general
tree services they value. Local people expressed the most interest in planting
introduced, commercially valuable tree species such as Anacardium occidentale,
89
Mangifera indica, Carica papaya, Psidium guajava, and Eucalyptus camaldulensis.
However, they also valued the services (particularly food and medicine) provided by a
number of native trees, such as Adansonia digitata, Cordyla pinnata, Detarium
microcarpum, Parkia biglobosa, and Tamarindus indica. They also expressed a sense of
pride in their knowledge about these trees. For these reasons, there may be a role for
native species in tree-planting projects, especially if they can be commercialized.
•
Extension agents may wish to take negative perceptions of trees into account when
designing projects. The prominent perceptions that Azadirachta indica is allelopathic,
while Euphorbia balsamifera and Jatropha curcas attract snakes are worthy of further
investigation. In the meantime, extension agents should keep in mind that efforts to plant
these trees, at least in certain locations, are unlikely to find popular support.
•
People were acutely aware of deforestation and many of its causes; this is not
something they need to be “sensitized” about.
•
Rather, extension agents can learn from local people about important drivers of
deforestation. One significant idea is that new goods that substitute for services
formerly provided by trees can lead to the devaluation of trees and increase their
likelihood of being cut. In particular, the suggestion that the construction of latrines led
to cutting trees and shrubs around the village (because they were less valued for privacy)
seems worthy of further investigation. Similarly, the near-exclusive use of the threatened
species Cordyla pinnata in bread ovens suggests an avenue for intervention. Extension
agents might consider working with bread oven operators to increase oven efficiency and/
or find alternative fuels to combat the decline of this species.
90
•
Extension agents may wish to focus their efforts on planting trees on private land,
since this was a popular strategy for combatting deforestation. They should keep in mind
how land tenure issues affect people’s interest in, and ability to, plant trees. Treeplanting on private land may involve planting orchards or woodlots of introduced or
native trees. Popular interest in live fencing suggests there is much potential for this
agroforestry technique. The valuation of trees for decreasing wind also suggests that
many people would also be interested in planting windbreaks. However, local people
don’t often perceive trees as benefitting soils and so may not adopt alley-cropping as
readily.
•
Participants suggested management of the silvo-pastoral zone to control cutting,
although extension agents or organizations should be aware of potential obstacles to
this approach. The lack of established rule-enforcing institutions and social contact
between the villages that share the zone could increase the difficulty in overcoming the
social dilemma inherent in managing common resources. Community forestry also faces
unique legal and political challenges in Senegal.
•
Fuels that substitute for firewood and/ or more efficient stoves could reduce tree
cutting, as suggested by participants. The stoves are probably the more feasible option in
terms of cost, although improved stoves should be field-tested to ensure that they are
more fuel efficient.
•
Extension agents may wish to promote strategies that were not mentioned by
participants, although these will have a better chance of success if they are
91
integrated with local ideas. Farmer-managed natural regeneration, fire control, or
livestock management are possibilities.
This study was conducted in a small geographical area, and it findings are most relevant
for extension agents and organizations working in that area. It should not be assumed that the
local perceptions and ideas described here would be the same or even similar to those in other
areas of the country. Rather, I would encourage outside actors working in other places to solicit
local perceptions and ideas as much as possible in order to maximize the effectiveness of their
work.
92
Works cited
Alcamo, Joseph, and Elena M. Bennett. "MA Conceptual Framework." In Ecosystems and
human well-being: a framework for assessment. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003.
25-36.
Arbonnier, Michel. Trees, shrubs, and lianas of West African dry zones. Paris: Centre de
coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement, 2004.
Behrman, Lucy C. Muslim brotherhoods and politics in Senegal. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1970.
Boffa, Jean. Agroforestry parklands in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rome: FAO, 1999.
Bryden, Mark. Design principles for wood burning cook stoves. Washington, DC: U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air and Radiation, 2005.
Caveness, F. A., and W. B. Kurtz. "Agroforestry adoption and risk perception by farmers in
Senegal." Agroforestry Systems 21, no. 1 (1993): 11-25.
Cruise O'Brien, Donal. "Chiefs, saints and bureaucrats” and “Bureaucrats and co-operators." In
Saints & politicians: essays in the organisation of a Senegalese peasant society.
London: Cambridge University Press, 1975. 85-146.
Dommergues, Y.R.. "The role of biological nitrogen fixation in agroforestry." In Agroforestry, a
decade of development. Nairobi: International Council for Research in Agroforestry,
1987. 245-271.
FAO. Global forest resources assessment 2010: main report. Rome: Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, 2010.
Fahey, Jed. "Moringa oleifera: A Review of the Medical Evidence for Its Nutritional,
Therapeutic, and Prophylactic Properties. Part 1." Trees For Life Journal 1, no. 5
(2005): 1-15. http://www.tfljournal.org/article.php/20051201124931586 (accessed
February 28, 2013).
Faye, Jacques. Land and decentralisation in Senegal. London: International Institute for
Environment and Development Issue Papers, 2008.
Franke, Richard W., and Barbara H. Chasin. "Planting the seeds of famine: European
colonialism in the Sahel” and “On the eve of the famine: Independence and
Dependency." In Seeds of famine: ecological destruction and the development dilemma
in the west African Sahel. Montclair, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980. 63-133.
Gellar, Sheldon. "The Historical Background." In Senegal--an African nation between Islam and
the West. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. 1-21.
93
Gellar, Sheldon. "The Old Order and Colonialism” and “Centralization and Democratic
Despotism." In Democracy in Senegal: Tocquevillian analytics in Africa. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 27-59.
Gibson, C, J Williams, and E Ostrom. "Local Enforcement and Better Forests." World
Development 33, no. 2 (2005): 273-284.
Gonzalez, Patrick. "Desertification and a shift of forest species in the West African Sahel."
Climate Research 17 (2001): 217-228.
Kessler, J.J., and H. Breman. "The potential of agroforestry to increase primary production in the
Sahelian and Sudanian zones of West Africa." Agroforestry Systems 13, no. 1 (1991):
41-62.
Maranz, Steven. "Tree Mortality in the African Sahel Indicates an Anthropogenic Ecosystem
Displaced by Climate Change." Journal of Biogeography 36, no. 6 (2009): 1181-1193.
Marshall, Catherine, and Gretchen B. Rossman. "Recording, Managing, and Analyzing Data." In
Designing qualitative research. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1999.
147-165.
Nicholson, Sharon E.. "Climatic and environmental change in Africa during the last two
centuries." Climate Research 17 (2001): 123-144.
O'Reilly, Karen. "Introduction: ethnography as practice,” “Ethical ethnography,” “Participating
and observing,” and “Ethnographic analysis." In Ethnographic methods. London:
Routledge, 2005. 1-27, 62-115, 179-207.
Ostrom, Elinor. "A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action."
The American Political Science Review 92, no. 1 (1998): 1-22.
Oya, Carlos. "From State Dirigisme to Liberalisation in Senegal: Four Decades of Agricultural
Policy Shifts and Continuities." The European Journal of Development Research 18, no.
2 (2006): 203-234.
Pires, Mark. "A historical political ecology of land use in the southeastern Peanut Basin of
Senegal." African Geographical Review 31, no. 2 (2012): 95-110.
Post, Johan, and Maaike Snel. "The impact of decentralised forest management on charcoal
production practices in Eastern Senegal." Geoforum 34 (2003): 85-98.
Poteete, Amy R., and Jesse C. Ribot. "Repertoires of Domination: Decentralization as Process in
Botswana and Senegal." World Development 39, no. 3 (2011): 439-449.
Reader, John. Africa: a biography of the continent. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1998.
94
Reporters Without Borders. "Press Freedom Index 2013 - Reporters Without Borders." Reporters
Without Borders. http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html (accessed
February 20, 2013).
Ribot, Jesse C., Arun Agrawal, and Anne M. Larson. "Recentralizing while Decentralizing: How
National Governments Reappropriate Forest Resources." World Development 34, no. 11
(2006): 1864-1886.
Ross, Eric. "Introduction: The geography and history of Senegal." In Culture and customs of
Senegal. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008. 1-30.
Salam, Abdus, and Hisashi Kato-Noguchi. "Evaluation of Allelopathic Potential of Neem
(Azadirachta indica. A. Juss) Against Seed Germination and Seedling Growth of
Different Test Plant Species." International Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 2, no. 2
(2010): 20-25.
Saldaña, Johnny. "An Introduction to Codes and Coding." In The coding manual for qualitative
researchers. London: Sage, 2009. 1-31.
Searing, James F. “God alone is king”: Islam and emancipation in Senegal : the Wolof kingdoms
of Kajoor and Bawol, 1859-1914. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
Tappan, G.G., M. Sall, E.C. Wood, and M. Cushing. "Ecoregions and land cover trends in
Senegal." Journal of Arid Environments 59 (2004): 427-462.
Transparency International. "Corruptions Perceptions Index." Transparency International.
http://archive.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/previous_cpi
(accessed February 15, 2013).
USAID. "Property Rights and Resource Governance." United States Agency for International
Development Country Profiles- Senegal. usaidlandtenure.net/sites/default/files/countryprofiles/full-reports/USAID_Land_Tenure_Mali_Profile.pdf (accessed February 15,
2013).
von Maydell, H. J.. Trees and shrubs of the Sahel: their characteristics and uses. Weikersheim:
Verlag Josef Margraf, Scientific Books, 1990.
Weiss, Robert Stuart. "Respondents: choosing them and recruiting them." In Learning from
strangers: the art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press,
1995. 15-38.
Yin, Robert K. "Introduction” and “Designing Single- and Multiple-Case Studies." In Case study
research: design and methods. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1984. 13-54.
95
Appendix: Basic interview guide used with participants.
1. Has the number of trees in the area been increasing, decreasing, or staying the same?
2. During what time period have the changes occurred?
3. What has caused the changes?
4. Which species of trees/shrubs have increased or decreased the most?
5. Is the change in trees/shrubs a problem? Why or why not?
6. What is the solution to the problem?
96