Integrated Assessment of the Multiple Benefits of Biodiversity resulting from Forest and Land Restoration in the Sahel region
Sahel, Niger and Burkina Faso
Objectives
This project aims to investigate the implication of biodiversity changes resulting from diverse Forest Landscape Restoration (‘FLR’) interventions, mainly to the provisions of ecosystem services in different ecosystems and ecological conditions of Burkina Faso and Niger. As a regional center of excellence in agriculture and climate science, AGRHYMET will use this project to deepen scientific knowledge and awareness, at the national level, of biodiversity benefits from FLR interventions, with a socio-economic and ecological perspective. The project results will provide input to global technical reports on the benefits of FLR in dryland areas, with a particular contribution to a technical workshop in 2018 on land restoration and biodiversity conservation.
The research will be conducted on 4 sites (of which 2 are in Niger and 2 are in Burkina Faso), and will investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of at least 2 types of past FLR interventions with techniques regularly cited as climate smart agriculture. The research team will first analyse and quantify the biodiversity changes in soil-plant systems by developing comparative analyses. They will then analyse how these changes affect the provision of ecosystem services (such as food supply, carbon sequestration, erosion control) at the local level, considering possible trade-offs between different kinds of benefits. They will finally document the economic (theoretical) value of the variations of ecosystem services derived from FLR and analyse the parts of these services that can be financially realized (through local PES schemes or international payments when it comes to REDD+).
Progress and next steps
The project has officially been launched in November 2017 with 50 delegates from Niger and Burkina Faso. Following the kick-off meeting, a specific research action forming part of the project has also started, under an agreement between CBD and AGRHYMET Regional Center. The research team comprises two post-doctorate scientists supported by a scientific committee from the two countries.
Implementing partners
This project is carried out by AGRHYMET Regional Centre, an Intergovernmental Technical Organization operating under CILSS (Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel)
