Taï – Grebo-Krahn – Sapo

The Taï - Grebo-Krahn - Sapo Landscape stretches from south-east Liberia to south-west Côte d’Ivoire. This forest complex contains the last large block of intact Guinean forests, over 7 000 km² of which are protected areas, including the Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are also the Grebo-Krahn and Sapo parks, Liberia’s newest and oldest national parks respectively. The landscape is made up of a combination of natural environments and areas that have been transformed to varying degrees, more so on the Ivorian side. These areas contain a wide variety of biodiversity, rich in endemism. Taï Park alone contains 42 % of the plant species classified as ‘rare and/or threatened’ in Côte d’Ivoire on the IUCN Red List (2016), and more than 90 % of West Africa’s forest fauna, including the pygmy hippopotamus.

For more information :

• https://www.papfor.org/Tai-National-Park
• https://www.papfor.org/The-dense-humid-forests-and-their-endemic-plant-species
• https://www.papfor.org/Ungulate-mammals
• https://www.papfor.org/Primate-species-endemic-to-West-Africa-west-of-Sassandra-River

The PAPFor project started in the TGKS landscape in June 2020.
The aim is to effectively, efficiently and legitimately protect biodiversity and priority forest ecosystems in the TGKS landscape. To achieve this, the project aims to :

• Integrate socio-economic and environmental activities into territorial development plans
• Develop effective management systems for forest protected areas
• Support the rural development of local populations.

In the forested area south-west of Zaïpobly, on the periphery of the Tai National Park, a group of women have set up a makoré tree nursery, a tree with multiple benefits. It is the first organisation to produce oil from this forest plant. With the support of PAPFor, the group put 5 million makoré seedlings on sale for the first time in May 2022.

Led by Simone Tahi and Aminata Ouédraogo, the group comprises 200 women who are actively involved in raising and planting makoré trees, producing oil from the fruit and encouraging many other farmers to start planting this type of tree.

The project has also set out to support the makoré oil industry, a product used in both cooking and cosmetics. In particular, the programme has supported the construction and equipping of an oil production unit (including roasting and refining).

For more information: https://www.papfor.org/Tree-nursery-empowers-women-in-Tai-region-Cote-d-Ivoire

Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire have established border collaboration mechanisms for the TGKS landscape. In May 2023, to support this process, the PAPFor programme facilitated a bilateral steering committee where both countries reaffirmed their commitment to the protection of the landscape and its threatened species.
This commitment is being realised through a range of conservation projects, from the training and deployment of eco-guards and law enforcement officers to the provision of livelihood support to forest-dwelling communities.

For more information: https://www.papfor.org/Liberia-and-Cote-d-Ivoire-reaffirm-commitment-to-jointly-protect-TGKS

To the west of the Taï National Park (TNP), the NGO Yacoli Village École Ouverte (YVEO) is supporting the implementation of Local Development Plans in 6 villages bordering the park, in particular by supporting the participatory process.
YVEO has promoted community involvement in conserving the park’s biological resources and maintaining its boundaries, as well as in the sustainable management of natural resources in the Taï zone.
As part of this work, the villages to the west of the TNP benefited from an assessment of their respective Local Development Committees (LDCs). The YVEO team reviewed the functioning of the LDCs through a participatory diagnosis and identified the capacity-building needs of the LDC management bodies.
A total of 90 people (LDC members) took part in the workshops.

For more information: https://www.papfor.org/State-of-play-of-the-Local-Development-Committees-in-6-villages-bordering-Tai

In Liberia, participatory land assessments were carried out in 2022 and led to the development of a land-use plan for the Glarro district. During the preparation of the plan, 13 maps were developed in a participatory manner with local stakeholders and 3 areas of potentially high conservation value were identified to ecologically connect the southern block of the Grebo-Krahn National Park with its main block. As part of the development of this land-use plan, two formal local agreements on land use and the sustainable management of natural resources involving 16 communities were signed in March 2023 under the lead of the LLA (Liberia Land Authority) in collaboration with the FDA (Forestry Development Authority).

Maintaining connectivity between protected areas is essential to strengthening their resilience and ensuring the genetic flow of animal and plant species, particularly between the Taï and Sapo National Parks.

The project to create a wooded corridor along the Saro river, located 3 km south-east of the town of Taï, has been confirmed, with the aim of officially classifying it as a Voluntary Nature Reserve, following requests from the communities.

The PAPFor programme provided support for this and facilitated the process of designing the corridor and getting it approved. Measures have been set out in a simplified management plan as required by the Voluntary Nature Reserve status, in which provisions relating to surveillance, rules of use, management of foreseeable human-wildlife conflicts on the periphery, etc. will be drawn up in a participatory manner.

PAPFor supported the capacity building of local development committees (LDCs) and the development of sustainable income-generating community activities, in response to a socio-economic needs assessment undertaken in 6 communities around the TNP.

As part of this support, a grant was awarded in April 2023 to local NGO Yacoli Village École Ouverte (YVEO) to work with communities.

Beneficiaries, including members of Local Development Committees, have been trained in modern cane rat farming techniques and simplified accounting.

The project has created healthy competition between the communities for effective project management and improved organisation.

For more information: https://www.papfor.org/PAPFor-supports-income-generating-activities-in-six-communities-around-Tai

In Liberia, the PAPFor programme supported the construction and equipping of several pig farms and the provision of an initial group of piglets for each unit. The programme provided a number of training courses, including on feeding with local products, to ensure greater sustainability.

Through a contract to support the German co-funded NGO WCF, which is active in and around Grebo-Krahn, the PAPFor programme has strengthened the capacity of several teams of eco-guards. These eco-guards come from the park’s local communities and are trained and equipped to carry out surveillance and awareness-raising patrols. They are also trained to monitor signs of human activity in the park and to conduct a range of fauna and flora observations. All their observations are collected by mobile units using SMART, a software tool designed for monitoring protected areas. More than 84 days of patrols were organised over more than 290 km, leading to the arrest of 15 poachers.

The PAPFor programme in the TGKS Forest Complex was implemented from June 2020 to March 2024 by GiZ, with offices in Abidjan and Monrovia, and two field teams based in Taï and Zwedru. Agreements with the institutions and structures in charge of the environment and protected areas in each of the two countries have been drawn up to ensure optimum ownership.

Partenaires

PAMAC (Comités consultatifs issus de la Société civile – Liberia)

The TGKS landscape will continue to be supported by the European Union as part of its NaturAfrica initiative.