In order to succeed in the protection of our environment the Gambia government involves the local communities to take ownership of their forest parks ,biodiversity and wild life in form of projects.

The project places strong emphasis on local and national capacity building with the following expected results:

 

• Improved rural livelihoods through increased adaptive capacity among pilot village communities in local land use planning and agro forestry-based land conservation practices.

• Improved capacity among national and regional policy institutions for targeting and testing of adaptive policy and agro forestry-based management interventions for sustainable management of dry land ecosystems and improved livelihoods in West Africa.

• Core of national research and development workers in West African pilot countries with capacity for implementing ecosystem approaches to dry land management, including land degradation surveillance, policy analysis using environmental

accounting, and scientific design and testing of policy and agro forestry-based land management interventions.

• National research and development workers support and utilize rigorous methods for targeting land management interventions in semi-arid areas, and monitoring their impacts on productivity, biodiversity, soil quality, and human well-being.

• National and regional policy makers test and adopt approaches to support adaptive ecosystem management and systematic evaluation of alternative policies, strategies and plans for sustainable land management that benefit the environment, the economy and the public welfare.

• Local authorities and farmers adopt best-bet agro forestry and policy alternatives at pilot sites in the region.

 Assumptions to achieve results

It is assumed that key stakeholders (governments, agencies, regional organizations, village communities, NGOs) will fully participate in the capacity building activities covered by the project. The project assumes that improved targeting of agro forestry and supporting policy interventions to areas undergoing severe Parkland degradation will result in improved adaptive capacity of local communities, reduced poverty and enhanced ecosystem services through increased income from tree, crop and livestock products and more resilient agro ecosystems.

3.4 Impact on poverty alleviation:

Over 40 million people living in the semi-arid dry lands of West Africa depend on the traditional Parkland system (integrated crop-tree-livestock systems) as the main provider of food, nutrition, income, and environmental services.

Degradation of the Parkland system is threatening the livelihoods of the already impoverished rural population.

The project aims to improve rural livelihoods through increased income from tree, crop and livestock products and more resilient agro ecosystems by increasing the capacity of pilot village communities in local land use planning and agro forestry-based land conservation practices and improving capacity among national and regional policy institutions for targeting and testing of adaptive policy and agro forestry-based management interventions.

Further, the project will complement UNEP’s Poverty and Environment project (Strengthen Environmental Policy and Management Capacity at the National and Local Levels as a Contribution to Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development in Africa) by building national capacity in new methods for quantifying land degradation and evaluating the importance of land degradation in relation to the economic and environmental resource base.

These methods provide a systematic basis for evaluation and targeting of land use interventions and policy alternatives that simultaneously consider human, environmental and economic welfare. The choice of countries for implementation of this project was also made to provide to maximize the synergy with the UNEP Poverty and Environment project.