The NEPL NP ecotourism program directly and indirectly creates skills and capacity building opportunities and awareness raising for the following groups: (1) NEPL NP ecotourism team itself (2) Ecotourism communities and service providers (3) Visitors, TOs and the government counterparts.
When NEPL NP program began in 2010, tourism was almost non-existing in the region. By offering an opportunity to learn to the locals and recruiting tourism consultants to support, the NEPL NP ecotourism staff now has grown into some of the most experienced ecotourism professionals in the country. Most of these staff come from the NEPL NP villages and are from a former hunter households or even used to be hunters themselves. By working with the NEPL NP, staff have learned about the importance of conservation and today are well acknowledged ecotourism officers and conservation advocates. Some of the NEPL NP’s ecotourism staff have raised up to key NEPL NP management and advisory positions.
The NEPL NP ecotourism team now creates and coordinates ecotourism training opportunities and outreach campaigns. In addition, NEPL NP ecotourism program has a non-negligible awareness raising power that benefits all visitors as well as TOs and the government counterparts.
Trainings, Workshops, and Study Tours
Close collaboration with key decision makers
Close collaboration with local community and government agencies throughout the development and management of the projects is essential.
During the ecotourism program beginning, recruiting qualified local human resources was challenging, therefore, staff from other provinces were selected. However, due to the NEPL NP’s remote location, these staff moved away after short period of time. Recruiting less qualified, but local and motivated staff and providing the necessary skills and capacity building opportunities have presented greater results and higher level of commitment.
Marketing and Collaboration with tourism private sector
Monitoring and Adaptive Management
Promoting climate-resilient natural resource-based economy and businesses
Staff from The Ministry of Environment assess the progress of a new building being supported by UN Environment as part of a climate change adaptation project.
UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
The project increases the generation of ecosystem goods and services and promotes the establishment of commercially viable natural resource-based businesses managed by local communities. To establish such businesses, the project conducted a baseline study including an assignment on the Economics and Market Analysis for establishing financially viable natural resource-based businesses in the Gambia. The report proposed 7 potential business portfolios and defined the financial implications of these natural resource-based businesses for the contributions to the National Forest Fund (NFF) through a detailed discounted cash flow analysis. One such activity to facilitate the establishment of these businesses was the introduction of bee-fodder tree species to support bee farming in the community-owned forests and community-protected areas (CPAs).
The project also facilitated the integration of the EbA approach and natural resource-based businesses into existing government plans and activities and demonstrated and quantified their commercial viability to promote further investment by the government and the private sector beyond the project implementation period.
Access to enough natural resources is important and requires, if not available, restoration and related activities to ensure availability.
Enough funding is key to build the required infrastructure and start the business.
For the businesses to be economically viable and attractive for local people, they need to stem from participatory processes and answer community needs. Technical guidance and training to the population can support the process.
Having support from the government and environmental agencies is helpful.
Providing capital only is not enough to develop successful natural resource-based enterprises. A more holistic, capacity development approach is needed. To achieve sustainability and impact, it is crucial to adopt participatory approaches to incentivize community members to take part in the activities.
The importance of implementing natural resource-based businesses through suitable business models implies the development of a business culture along the value chains of forest products to facilitate value addition and link producers and vendors to input and output markets. This requires:
Developing appropriate institutional arrangements to extend credit to actors in the Small and Medium Forest Enterprises (SMFEs); create awareness among value chain actors of appropriate financial sources, and establish credit guarantee schemes for producers and cooperative organizations.
Developing and improving the knowledge of market information systems and quality control measures and standards.
Strengthening community-based organizations of SMFEs to access services and facilitate their partnership with private sector entities.
Adopting mitigation measures to reduce the impact of climate risks
Based on the results of baseline studies that determined climatic risks, different ecosystem-based adaptation and mitigation measures were identified and individual farmers and community-based organizations were incentivized to lead the various activities through diverse training (led by World Agroforestry (ICRAF)); including:
The establishment of a two-meter-wide fire belt around all preferred mother trees, large trees within a forest that act as centralized hubs, supporting communication and nutrient exchange amongst trees.
Farmer-managed tree growing approach, named Zai Pits, half-moon planting pits, which farmers create in the hardpan soil using hand tools or plows and animals. These act as micro-water catchments, holding about four times the amount of water that normally runs off the land but also compost, thereby increasing production.
Adding water-buffering vegetation around the runoff water collection reservoir to reduce wind flow over the reservoir and thus reduce evaporation from the system. The system also facilitates reduction in runoff and enhances groundwater recharge through infiltration.
Rainwater harvesting, storage, and distribution techniques were implemented to support the restoration efforts and overcome the shortage in water resources due to extreme weather conditions and low rainfall.
It is crucial to conduct baseline studies to determine the climatic risks, and then select adequate adaptation and mitigation measures, in light of local specificities. To choose the most appropriate and effective measures, access to enough knowledge from national and local sources (indigenous communities, national institutes, and ministries, local NGOs, etc) is key, and enough financial resources, human resources, and time should be allocated to the implementation of these measures.
By applying the correct planting or restoration method, such as assisted natural regeneration and having adequate access to resources, the survival rate went from 10-48% to almost 95% after three months of planting. Now these measures are being replicated in other community-owned forests and community-protected areas (CPAs).
Constraints, other than genetic and/or climatic, should be carefully explored and addressed to increase the survival rate of seedlings (e.g., bushfire, water shortage, grazing by wild and/or domestic animals including those coming through seasonal transhumance, etc)
In certain regions, there is only a short rainy season. Seedlings that are planted late in the rainy season can therefore struggle to survive the long season and the heat.
To increase the survival of the seedlings, measures such as the establishment of a fire-belt, or the use of water-buffering vegetation, might be required.
The adoption of farmer-managed tree growing approaches and the establishment of rainwater harvesting structures at the project sites might be necessary for an effective large-scale restoration.
One of the main challenges was the low availability of adequate and viable seedlings. To overcome this challenge, the project began constructing new tree nurseries, which were all developed during 2019 and became fully operational during 2020 with the construction of 900 seedbeds. Instead of one nursery per region, as it was initially planned, the project was recommended to construct nine (9) nurseries altogether as part of the strategy to meet the 10,000 hectares restoration target or slightly more. To sustain these nurseries, the project recruited 18 Nursery Attendants (two per nursery).
The nurseries aim to increase available planting materials to supply the EbA interventions and for use by communities outside the scope of the project. The project also developed long-term business plans and revenue models to support sustained operations of expanded/created nursery facilities.
In addition, six (6) Forest Stations were refurbished as part of the nursery infrastructure.
UNEP is also working with the Department of Forestry to explore low-cost options to establish small gene banks for use by the project and beyond the lifetime of the project. With the construction of these nurseries, adequate seedlings are and will be available throughout the year.
Enough financial and water resources to build and run the structures are needed. To build sustainable and efficient nurseries, the choice of the seeds is crucial (prior assessment recommended) and nursery attendants need to be hired. To sustain the nurseries, long-term business plans and revenue models to support activities of the nurseries should be developed.
Finally, it's key to involve the local communities and authorities in the construction and management of the nurseries and explain the economic, environmental, and social benefits of such nurseries.
To ensure the adequate quantity and type of seeds, the construction of additional nurseries might be required.
An adequate number of nursery attendants is needed for the successful management of the nurseries.
If establishing a new nursery, it is crucial to diversify the types of seedlings. Constructing a gene bank can be an effective means to achieve this.
Large-scale restoration work requires an adequate seed bank or gene bank more broadly to store and manage seeds/planting materials of different climate-resilient species involved.
Climate-resilient species preference and numbers to be planted need to be determined beforehand and allocation decisions should be within an agreed criterion as the number of seedlings may not satisfy demand or planting locations which affect project delivery.
