Contribution de la Coopération internationale de la Belgique
à la conservation de la diversité biologique

PARKS, vol 5 N°2 JUNE 1995

Protected areas and dams: the case of the Senegal River delta

by Pierre Pol VINCKE & Ibrahim THIAW

 

The Senegal River has been subjected to significant water-resource development projects. Two dams have been constructed on the river: one at Diama, near to the mouth of the river, is designed to exclude saline water, while the other, situated at Manantali in Mali, is a hydroelectric dam.
The development of the sub-region will depend on how these works are managed. Studies carried out as part of this important development scheme have once again raised the problem of protected areas and their integration in development schemes. The studies have shown that their future will primarily depend on governments' ability to integrate them in their planning, on the way in which they will define development policies based on an optimal management of natural resources for their national territories (which also exist outside these zones), on their ability to maintain a fruitful atmosphere of regional cooperation and on the way in which international partners react in the light of these prospects.
Examples are taken from the right bank (Mauritania) and the left bank (Senegal) of the delta of the Senegal River, to illustrate both the overall situation of the valley's natural environment and the environmental policies practised -or neglected - by the governments concerned.

THE SENEGAL VALLEY is the site of significant development. In thewake of the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s and in the light of the presumed outlook for rainfall, a regional water managernent programme was set up.
In 1972, a regional association, the Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du FIeuve Sénégal (Organisation for the Development of the Senegal River, or OMVS), was set up. Two dams (see Figure 1) have been constructed - to exclude saline water at Diama, near the mouth of the river, in 1985, and for hydroelectricity at Manantali, Mali, in 1987.
National planning bodies have been created with the task of working out post-dam guidelines. In Senegal, this is the Comité National de Planification, de Coordination et de Suivi du Développement de la Vallée du Fleuve Sénégal (National Planning, Coordinating and Development-Promoting Committee for the Senegal River Valley, or CNPCS) and its executive department, the post-dam group. In Mauritania, it is the Ministry of Hydraulics and Energy which is in charge of the Supporting Technology Office, which itself plays a consultant role on the interministerial post-dam committee.
The overriding objectives of the post-dam project are the struggle against desertification, the supply of drinking water, covering national food needs, the reduction of energy dependence, the generation of earnings with which to repay debts, navigability of the river, and the restoration of regional and national balance.

Protected areas in the Senegal River delta
On the left bank (see Figure 2), there are protected areas in the rural district of Ross Bethio. These are the Djoudj bird reserve, the Ndiaël and Trois Marigots special reserves, and the listed forests of'Tilène, Ndiaye, Massara Foulane and Maka Diama.

Figure 1. Senegal River basin, showing location of the Diama and Manantali dams.

The Senegalese delta is a wetland of international importance (International Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau). The Djouldj park and the Ndialël reserve are protected under the Ramsar Convention.
On the right bank is the Diawling national park, created in 1991 in the Keur Macène departement. The preservation of these protected areas will take on concrete form through competition with zones of agricultural production. The search for a common denominator between the imperatives of production and the need to conserve natural resources is one of the environmental concerns at stake in the guidelines.

Guidelines for the integrated development of the left bank of the Senegal river valley (PDRG)
The PDRG is a scheme for integrated development in which the management of river water, the protection and management of natural resources, the best possible use of traditional systems of production, the modernisation of operations and the empowerment of local people will be the guarantees of the sustainable development that is planned for the next 25 years. The PDRG's accompanying measures will be supported by structural developments: the local management of land, the integration of farming, forestry and grazing activities and fishing, the privatisation and intensification of agriculture, the promotion of the PME, health, and education.

Guidelines for the integrated development of the right bank of the Senegal river valley (PDRG)
The major pillars of these guidelines are the reduction of food dependence (price incentive policy, protection of national production), government withdrawal and a redefinition of its services, and increased efficiency of public intervention.

Figure 2. Senegal River delta, showing location of protected areas.

There are plans for a preliminary cadastral survey, a development plan for rural areas and a regional commission to look into the management of land ownership.

The importance of empowering local people to manage the land
The future of the protected areas depends on the the application of agricultural policies that are based on giving local peopleresponsability for the management of natural land resources as a way of securing sustainable development. In spite of similar objectives on either side of the river, there are some subtle differences between the socio-economic approaches to development of the PDRG and the PDRD. In the PDRD, government withdrawal aims more at rapid liberalisation than at giving responsibility to grass-roots organisations, management of the land seems more managerial there, and there is only reduced room for the management of natural resources and for traditional activities.
Because of these discrepancies, the post-dam scheme raises the problem of the decentralisation of certain state powers and of giving responsibility to grass-roots groups. These are options which will be realised by the reinforcement or the creation of local land management institutions as indispensable mediatory institutions between users and the government. The increasing degradation of naniral resources as a result of agricultural 'mining`show that the right of use imist involve a duty to manage, for these resources have a price which must he taken into account when preparing agricultural policy.
From this point of view, the management of the soil becomes part of land resource management in its widest sense; resource, types of operations, rights and duties depending on specific locations, and users: socio-professional, ethnic, gender, age groups. This land management will be carried out by drawing up local development plans (land registers, cadastral survey and a plan of land allocation and occupation), which will be the mediatory institutions between the management of land resources and regional and national plans. It will result in a decentralisation of the state and a redefinition of its role. Only political willingness that is unequivocally applied can lead to this grass roots empowerment, which can only express itself democratically.

The future of the protected areas in the Senegal River delta
It is stating the obvious to say that the post-dam situation has an influence on the function of the delta, both as a result of the upstream embankments (which allow the Diama reservoir to be filled better) and of the the Diama dam (which acts as a sluice to exclude salt water, prevent saline intrusion during low-water periods and allow floodwaters to be discharged, while taking advantage of flooding to supply floodplain depressions see below). Mesures have been, or will be, taken by the governments to minimise the negative effects of these influences.
The left bank
Reassured by guarantees of sufficient water supplies, the PDRG takes the needs of environmental protection and of enhancing traditional activities into account to propose the management of a 'peri-irrigated' belt of floodplain depressions for these uses. This belt comprises the Djoudj park, the Djeuss reserve, the Trois Marigots reserve, the Ndiaëll reserve, the banks of Lake Guiers and the Ferlo valley (see Figure 2).
In order to enhance traditional systems of production (crops, grazing and fishing), to rehabilitate certain flooded forests and recession-based grazing zones and to replenish groundwater, the principle of artificial flooding has been kept (generated by the Manantali dam and compatible with power generation) as a complement to natural flooding (provided by two other tributaries to the river that are not affected by this dam).
The right bank
The Mauritanian delta is made up of a network of bays, fluvial-deltaic arms and dune complexes. Although badly degraded by the droughts and the reduction in natural flooding, it can be rehabilitated. The aim of the Diawling park is the conservation of a part of the delta as a control environment and as an example of the development of natural resources.
If it were put into practice, the development of the Mauritanian delta around this park would allow a recreation of estuarine conditions. It would dampen the impact of the Diama dam on certain fish and crustaceans, whose reproduction de ends on variations in salinity and the availability of spawning grounds. It would also compensate for the reduction in natural flooding and would enhance permanent or semi-permanent traditional methods of fishing, grazing or market gardening. Implementing a development of this kind will be the result not only of national political willingness, but also of regionat and international cooperation.

The importance of cooperation
National cooperation
National cooperation is understood as national policical willingness unequivocally translated into institutional measures aimed at breathing life into propositions for integrated development and nature conservation.
The post-dam plan underlines the priority of institutional measures and actions allowing local land-management potential to be developed. This step is important because, from the point of view of the valley's development, the differences of opinion between users, among them those responsible for the protected areas, will continue to be a subject of potential conflict.
The future of the protected areas will depend on the governments' ability to draw up national integrated rural development policies in which local institutions, backed up by technical services and supervisory agencies, will be responsible for the good management of the natural heritage entrusted to the users.
Regional cooperation
The post-dam plan creates a link between the imperatives of agricultural production, nature conservation and human development. However, its intentions will remain unfulfilled unless regional cooperation puts some effort not solely into water management, power transmission, and the rules of river navigation, but also, and above all, into harmonising development strategies. Agricultural policies will be the first concern, as regards nature conservation and, in particular, the management of rural areas.
International cooperation
International cooperation will be understood as the commitment of the governments' partners to translate into concrete action their declarations relating to an integrated development based on respect for man and his environment.
International cooperation plays a strategic role in the establishment of development policies. However, it must distance itself from macro-economic options of strict profitability, because human development in nature does not ensue from mere monetary earnings, but rather from a balance between economic, social and environmental profitability. International cooperation must therefore actively participate in implementing - via structural adjustment policies and bilateral and multilateral cooperation agreements - the environmental declarations of intent made at international conferences.

Conclusion - nature conservation beyond protected areas
It is becoming increasingly urgent that we make clear the important role that protected areas (and the conservation strategies that they have given rise to) ought to play in rural development and in the definition of agricultural policies that are based on a more sensible management of natural resources.
International cooperation will encourage regional cooperation and will support the definition of national rural development policies based on local empowerment in the management of land.
In this way, the future of the protected areas is also the future of man. The knowledge gained from protected areas must be taken advantage of, not solely for the survival of these zones, but above all in order to define a concept of rural development that should be promoted in systems of production in Sahelian Africa at least. There is a great risk here of seeing prospects of development jeopardised by the inability to manage the complex and fragile balance between natural resources and man.

Acknowledgements
The present article draws on work by Vincke (1987, 1990a, b), Vincke et al. (1987) and van Lavieren and van Wetten (1990).

References
Anonymous. 1991. Plan Directeur de développement intégré pour la rive gauche de la vallée du fleuve Sénégal et ses quatre Schémas Départementaux (Dagana, Podor, Matam et Bakel). Gersar, A. Gibb, Euroconsult, SONED-Afrique, Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et du Plan, avril 1991.

Van Lavieren, B., and van Wetten, J. 1990. Profil environmental de la vallée du fleuve Sénégal. Euroconsult/RIN, 68pp.

Vincke, P.P. 1987, Le Bas-Ferio. 1. Compilation des travaux et études existantes sur la basse vallée du Ferlo. Il. Annexe bilbiographique. Cellule Après-Barrages, Ministère du Plan et de la Coopération. Juillet 1987, 34 + 40 pp.

Vincke, P.P. 1990a. L'aménagement des zones protégées, une nécessité pour le maintien de la diversité du vivant, une référence pour les générations à venir, une priorité pour une gestion plus écologique des ressources naturelles: réflexions induites à partir de l'AprèsBarrages. Atelier régional de formation sur la gestion et l'aménagement des aires protégées en Afrique, Dakar et St. Louis, 10 février au 4 mars 1990. Unesco, 13pp.

Vincke, P.P. 1990b. L'intégration agro -sylvo -pastorale et pêche, une stratégie visant la responsabilisation des populations rurales à la gestion des ressources naturelles de leur terroir: le cas de l'Après -Barrages. Atelier régional de formation sur la gestion et l'aménagement des aires protégées en Afrique, Dakar et St. Louis, 10 février au 4 mars, 1990. Unesco,6pp.

Vincke, P.P., Sournia. G and Wangary, E. (eds.) 1987, Pour une stratégie sahé1ienne de gestion de faune. Publication ENDA-UNESCO MAB-UICN. 145pp.

 

Pierre Pol Vincke, Cellule Après-Barrage, c/o. Ambassase deBelgique, Dakar, Sénégal.

Ibrahim Thiaw, IUCN Africa Programme, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland.

 

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