ArboRise Participative Reforestation in Upper Guinea

ArboRise Participative Reforestation in Upper Guinea is a project that proceeds by cycles of 3 years, during which it visits 25 villages to engage 250 ‘seed families’ and 250 ‘field families’ to reforest 1500 hectares. Thus, over 4 cycles, in 12 years, the project aims to cover 6000 hectares with the help of 2000 local families in 100 villages. The project started reforestation activities in 2021 and will continue until 2033. 150 hectares were reforested in 2021 and 500 hectares are reforested every following year until 2033. The project applies assisted natural regeneration measures and natural reforestation methods that strengthen biodiversity and seeks to maximize the involvement of local populations to ensure the long-term sustainability of the reforested areas. Seeds of a mix of 40 local forest species are directly harvested around the villages, and are thus adapted to the area, to ensure sustainability. The seeds are directly collected from many local growers, so called ‘seed families’, to which the project provides an income that helps enhance their forest heritage and promote agroforestry practices. “Seed families” have a seed tree, from which 20,000 seeds are collected per year. The project disperses seeds on the land through direct sowing with the help of the local population. In addition, landowners wishing to revitalize their land may invite arboRise to reforest a few hectares, we call them ‘field families’, and there is no change in land ownership. ‘Field families’ each make 6 hectares available. The project sows 10,000 seeds per hectare, which is added to natural regeneration. The “field families” implement measures to ensure the protection and growth of those forests and harvest non-timber forest products (fruits, seeds, fodder, etc.) according to the principles of agroforestry. There is no commercial logging activity in this project, only targeted thinning and pruning may be done to promote the growth of trees with high sequestration potential.