Restoring soils and the multifunctionality of degraded forest landscapes (TERRI4SOL)

If forestry and agriculture have provided the base for Côte d’Ivoire’s development over the 20th century, that has been to the detriment of the country’s forest cover, with 90% of the original area being lost. Deforestation associated with monoculture (rubber, cocoa, palm) has resulted in degradation and loss of soil fertility. That presents a threat both to the agricultural sector - which accounts for 27% of GDP - and to the climate, for which stability depends on organic carbon stores.

To tackle this two-edged challenge, the Terri4sol project promotes multifunctional regional planning and zero-deforestation sustainable agriculture. Supported by the FFEM, this project aims to rehabilitate organic carbon stores - a fundamental objective of the international “4 per 1,000” initiative.

The project has three components:

• Supporting the Côte d’Ivoire authorities and others involved in the development and management of a national “4 per 1,000 / Triple A” strategy.
• Developing regional scenarios for the multifunctional planning of agricultural, forest and post-forest areas in order to preserve and rehabilitate their organic carbon stores.
• Implementing similar scenarios with the local populations in the La Mé pilot region, and evaluating the climate and socio-economic impacts.

• Enhancing knowledge, both biophysical and socio-economic, of organic carbon dynamics.
• Adopting strategic objectives for the conservation and rehabilitation of the country’s organic carbon stores.
• Promoting sustainable agricultural practices by developing local multifunctional scenarios and supporting producers in implementing them.
• Capitalising information and ensuring project communication.

The Terri4sol project reconciles environmental protection with economic and social development. The FFEM financing will link together current initiatives, previously targeting either research or operations but not both. Within the current Côte d’Ivoire context, innovation lies in the launch - at multiple scales - of a change dynamic based on an agroforestry model, and the multifunctionality of agricultural landscapes. It also draws on the synergy between various stakeholders to allow a shared regional vision to emerge.

Additionally, the project offers a framework favourable both to reproducibility of its results, thanks to the deliberate policy of the Côte d’Ivoire government, and to its scaling-up. These learnings may be reprised for all the rainforest landscapes across West Africa.