Project description
Title: Conservation of the Taï National Park
Commissioned by: Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Country: Côte d’Ivoire
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Environment
Overall term: April 1992 to December 2009
Context
With its more than 5,000 square kilometres, Taï National Park is one of West Africa’s largest national parks and is regarded as the region’s most intact connected natural tropical forest area. In the south-west of Côte d’Ivoire, close to the Liberian border, the park’s natural resources are under diverse pressures from the neighbouring population and from cocoa and coffee cultivators. The natural forests have been largely cleared. Rare monkey species and small antelopes are also under severe pressure from hunting, with the result that their population’s long-term existence is under threat.
There is an international interest in preserving the national park, which has been a Natural World Heritage Site since 1983. Many rare and some endemic animal and plant species, such as chimpanzees, pygmy hippopotami and forest buffalo, are now to be found only in Taï Park.
Objective
The neighbouring population’s development opportunities have improved without damaging the Natural World Heritage Site of Taï National Park.
Approach
Together with KfW Entwicklungsbank (KfW development bank), the project cooperates closely with the Ivorian authorities responsible for the National Park’s management. It supports the park authority in carrying out its core tasks: organising surveillance, biomonitoring to collect data on the condition of the ecosystem, promoting ecotourism, economic development of the neighbouring zone and maintaining the infrastructure. If possible, the population is involved in these measures.
Enhanced PR both within Côte d’Ivoire and at international level is necessary to support and preserve the park in the long term.
Results achieved so far
Pressure on the park’s resources has been reduced. The existence of the park and its worthiness of protection are meanwhile recognised and welcomed by the local population. The evaluation of satellite pictures shows that the vegetation has remained intact since 2000 and the population has only cleared a few forest areas on the eastern border.
Poaching continues to be a problem that is exacerbated by the crisis. It is to be countered by stepping up controls and by income-generating measures, particularly for young people. The falling agricultural yields in the park’s border zones and the lack of alternative income opportunities have to be compensated for by new approaches. Cooperation with the private sector is particularly promising. Village plantations are being promoted in cooperation with enterprises in the natural rubber and palm oil industries, creating regular incomes. At the same time, trees that have been cultivated around Taï Park over a number of years also provide natural protection against forest clearance.
The population meanwhile is actively involved in protecting the park. The rehabilitation of the social infrastructure of the neighbouring zone to the west, which was destroyed and plundered by Liberian gangs in early 2003, was a motive for the population to cooperate with the park authority. On account of the ongoing crisis, it remains unlikely that the tourist potential of the park will be tapped, which means that the park management will continue to depend long-term on external subsidies. The competent authorities are being supported here in drawing up a management plan and a business plan; the main demand in the years ahead will be to finance the latter sustainably.
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