Introduction

Forests remain vital to the survival of Togo's rural population, but degradation of forest areas is continuing. The main drivers of forest degradation in Togo are the need for new agricultural land, mostly illegal logging for firewood and charcoal production, especially for Togo's urban areas, and unsustainable logging of timber. This also applies to the prefecture of Tchamba. The main actors in the prefecture are the regional environmental authority and its decentralised office in the prefecture, the community councils, village management committees around community forests, as well as local and migrant producers who are in permanent competition for access to cultivable land, and transhumance who regularly pass through the prefecture with their cattle herds. A relatively new phenomenon is that urban migrants are trying to establish large agricultural farms (plantations) with several hundred hectares.

The Project

Forests remain vital to the survival of Togo's rural population, but degradation of forest areas is continuing. The main drivers of forest degradation in Togo are the need for new agricultural land, mostly illegal logging for firewood and charcoal production, especially for Togo's urban areas, and unsustainable logging of timber. This also applies to the prefecture of Tchamba. The main actors in the prefecture are the regional environmental authority and its decentralised office in the prefecture, the community councils, village management committees around community forests, as well as local and migrant producers who are in permanent competition for access to cultivable land, and transhumance who regularly pass through the prefecture with their cattle herds. A relatively new phenomenon is that urban migrants are trying to establish large agricultural farms (plantations) with several hundred hectares.