Photo credit: Djènè Madé Fofana
The destruction of fauna and flora and the disappearance of natural resources lead to numerous community conflicts. To remedy this, Aide et Action and its partner ACORD Guinea are training in eco-citizenship to strengthen environmental protection and social cohesion in Upper Guinea
" The project has changed my relationship with the environment and the community. It has allowed me to initiate debates between the different actors around the environmental issue, to visualise the environmental consequences of our actions and to identify joint actions to address them. In Mandiana we reforested 1.5 hectares on sites heavily affected by environmental degradation. We also carried out mass awareness-raising and dialogue sessions to resolve community conflicts over resources in 12 villages affected by gold panning, bush fires, deforestation, etc."Filakaly Diallo, a Guinean hunter who has actively participated in the project set up by Aide et Action and its partner in Guinea, explains.
Eco-citizenship training to protect the environment
In the country, loggers, gold miners, mining companies, farmers, herders and fishermen are seen as the main culprits of deforestation. Their actions lead to the destruction of fauna and flora and the disappearance of natural resources, which further increases community conflicts. Faced with this situation, Aide et Action and its partner ACORD Guinea propose in the framework of the Project "Strengthening the Confraternity of Traditional Hunters for Environmental Protection and Social Cohesion in Upper Guineaa eco-citizenship training. The project aims to raise awareness among administrative authorities, representatives of mining companies, traditional hunting groups and logging companies about the degradation of natural resources, and to take concrete action to protect the environment. An awareness-raising campaign was conducted to raise awareness of the harmful effects of gold washing, bush fires and abusive wood cutting.
Dialogue to build a greener and fairer world
At the end of the various awareness-raising sessionsIn addition, the traditional hunters have undertaken to reforest and organise awareness-raising sessions in the villages to perpetuate and consolidate the project's achievements. Finally, the project has enabled the reforestation of 4.5 hectares in degraded areas and former gold mining sites. These plantations will eventually allow communities to have access to fruit and forest products and therefore to financial resources. " This project has enabled Mandiana Rural Radio to address the issue of environmental protection in a different way.Faman Keita, head of programmes at the Mandiana rural radio station, adds. " Before this project, we never exchanged with hunters, who we considered to be people to be avoided because of certain prejudices we had. During the discussions, the role that hunters play in environmental protection and community safety became more obvious. Today, we organise emissions on the degradation of the fauna and flora in the prefecture of Mandiana and return to the causes: abusive logging and gold washing with practices that are harmful to biodiversity. We manage to reach a large audience and make them understand that environmental protection concerns us all.
