One Tree at a Time

By Elizabeth Bintliff, Heifer regional director for West Africa

Senegal is a tough place to be a tree. Sitting precariously in the Sahel, with the Sahara desert fast encroaching from the North, Senegal is a dry country with rain falling for only a few months each year. When it does rain, the bare earth erodes, unable to absorb the abundance. And because soil is often 95 percent sand, water quickly drains away beyond the root zone.

So trees must resist drought, but they are also under siege from people. Fifty-seven percent of fuel needs are met by firewood and charcoal. So scarce is wood in Senegal that a lot of the furniture, even in the fanciest hotels, is made of metal.

Arboriculture, the cultivation of trees, shrubs, vines and other woody plants, is an important source of income for families in the villages where Heifer started working in 2007. In the village of Fandene, for example, the royal palm tree and leaves of Kinkéliba, a local tea, have been exploited for years. Here and at other villages, Heifer offers training on grafting and other techniques to improve and increase yields of existing fruit-tree varieties. Heifer Senegal is also partnering with the Regional Services for Water and Forestry, an agency of the government, to plant new trees.

Partnering with Senegal’s Ministry of Agriculture, Heifer has provided training for 100 participants on forestry nursery preparation. Graduates of the trainings now run thriving nurseries offering both trees for reforestation and fruit trees for personal use and for sale. Some of the trees provide shade, fuel wood or forage for livestock. Others serve as windbreakers and boost soil quality by reducing erosion and fixing nitrogen into the soil.

But the efforts to reverse effects of deforestation cannot focus on tree planting alone. After all, trees take time to mature. Reversing the trend requires a change in the way the scarce firewood now available is used. That’s why Heifer is helping project participants build energy-efficient stoves that can reduce fuel consumption by 65 percent.