We are developing a decision-making tool to help the economic, cooperative and sustainable development of Malian forests (more specifically the protected forest of Faya, located in the northeast of Bamako, Mali) by integrating different stakeholders. One of the main characteristics of the Faya protected forest is that it constitutes a major food resource for the traditional agrarian population who live nearby, meaning that any modification or sustainable action on this forest cannot be done without their involvement and without taking their particular needs into account in order to avoid challenging severely their secular way of life.

The other stakeholders (than the considered local population) cannot be neglected. However, the needs and expectations of each stakeholder are all or partly antithetical. The whole issue is to “find” compromises which will allow everyone (the ecosystems of the Faya forest included) to satisfy their own interests whether they are economic, environmental and/or social. In this context, the objective of the project, built in collaboration between Mali and France, is to improve the Faya forest so that it is well-equipped to face climate change challenges, but in a participative and, of course, economically and ecologically resilient way. More precisely, the main points which will be developed/improved, are: i) improving communication and exchanges between the different stakeholders and raise their awareness about sustainable activities; ii) creating value through the different exchanged flows (those currently involved and those who might be implemented in a circular economy context); iii) improving the life conditions of the local populations while promoting, when possible, women’s work around craftsmanship and other income-generating activities linked to the reusing of ligneous and non-ligneous materials in order to allow local populations to obtain a sustainable benefit from developed activities and become more resilient to climate change (the Faya forest being in the Sahel area); iv) implementing sustainable development in the territory covered by the forest and its local populations by integrating different potential activity sectors such as ecotourism, farming, ranching, etc.. These different points will be deployed and coordinated through decision-making tools aiming to rationalize the means used to reach the targeted objectives. On the one hand, in a systemic approach, the actors’ relationships and behaviours will be modelled, and, on the second hand, the ecosystem will be formalized to identify its strengths and weaknesses over time. To be useful to the Malian government, this tool will be dynamic and resilient in its ability to take into account different evolution scenarios (like divergent individual objectives of actors going against the global objective of the ecosystem, a scarcity of ecosystem resources, a change in different parameters, etc.) as well as various hazards (like desertification, heavily impacted biodiversity, population shifts, etc.).

As the Ministry of Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development of Mali and the operator in charge of the management of the Faya forest are involved in the project, we will be able to use actual data to model and implement an accurate tool. This tool will then be directly used by the Malian government to improve the Faya forest development in coordination with the private operator.

This initiative is led by university of Lorraine, France, and University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali. The information is exchanged via emails and Visio/phone conferences. These two universities also co-lead students who work on subparts of the project, both in France and in Mali. For the impacts evaluation, tests will be made directly on the Faya area, by integrating our developed strategies into their forest management and the ecotourism development. Then, the actual results of the implemented strategies will be measured in situ, both at the level of the forest and its local populations.

- Ministry of Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development of Mali - National Directorate of Water and Forestry, - Operator in charge of managing the Faya forest - Société de Gestion des Concessions Forestières et Fauniques (SGCFF - Management Company for Forest and Wildlife Concessions), - French Embassy in Mali, - University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali (USTTB), - University of Lorraine, France (UL).