Strengthening the sustainable management of natural forests in the Moyen-Ouémé region (ConForMo)

Founded in 2007 and expanded in 2012 to four new communities, CoForMO has set itself the goal of ensuring the sustainable management of forestry resources in the State’s protected zone around nine member communities, while contributing to their economic and social development. The forestry management model deployed by CoForMO has been assessed as exemplary with respect to the requirements of multi-actor governance and joint forestry management. In addition to rehabilitating degraded forest cover, it is also contributing to the fight against climate change and to biodiversity conservation.
Maintaining this momentum, CoForMO is now planning to ensure the sustainability of this arrangement through the launch of rural wood markets to facilitate a sustainable wood fuel business in Benin.

The project has five components:

1. Setting up and running rural wood markets which are monitored and regulated, to meet the energy consumption needs of households.
2. Pursuing the implementation of management plans for natural forests over an area of 318,000 ha in the first group of 5 pilot communities, which have already been supported through the initial phase (Dassa, Glazoué, Savé, Ouessé and Tchaourou).
3. Planting and developing forests in four new communities within this grouping (Bassila, Banté, Djidja and Savalou).
4. Deploying a system of ecological monitoring for the forests under development.
5. Strengthening the capabilities of CoForMO as a Public Body for Inter-community Co-operation (EPCI) in forest management and helping it achieve financial independence.
    

• Contribution to the local, economic and social development of member communities through fair distribution of the benefits from forestry activities.
• The emergence of citizens’ governance of the communal forestry assets, to encourage a transfer of contractual responsibilities and the building of new relations between the people, the communities and the forestry administration.
• Preservation of a threatened forestry heritage and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through the sustainable development of natural forests, the rational use of wood as a fuel and the introduction of innovative techniques such as improved set-aside or tree inter-cropping.

This project is based on an innovative multi-actor governance arrangement involving contractual inter-community joint management (public) of a forestry heritage shared by different tribes and families (private). This shared approach, unprecedented in Benin, brings together all the stakeholders - including women - within the decision-making process. The establishment of a network of natural forests and their management by a Public Body for Inter-community Co-operation also contribute to the novel nature of this initiative.