Establishment of national committee
In October 2009, a national committee comprising community members, NGOs and governmental authorities was established by the Ivorian Minister of Environment to deal with the process of classification of the Tanoé forest as an official community reserve.
The process must be initiated by informed communities’ representatives and the conservation value of the site must be highlighted. In this case, traditional land owners, i.e. the villages located around the forest wrote a request letter to the Minister of Environment for the site to be classified as a community reserve. In their letter, they highlighted the conservation value of the site as revealed by the preliminary data provided by the CSRS team. They also highlighted threats to the site and expressed their willingness to protect their ancestral heritage.
Informed communities may take important conservation initiatives. In this case communities were informed about the uniqueness of the primate fauna of the Tanoé forest. They were also informed about the possibility offered by the Ivorian law as per the creation of community reserves.