PROJECT ASSESSMENTS - Science for Agriculture and Rural Development in Low-income Countries - page 194

VINVAL *
Impact of changing land cover on the production and ecological functions of
vegetation in inland valleys in West Africa
A) Project setting
1) What was the background and motivation of the project?
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the need for new agricultural land has been a strong argument
for the extensive clearing of forests and savannah woodlands. This has resulted in
widespread degradation of soils, water and vegetation. In order to preserve these
natural resources for the future, there is a need to balance land use for both
agricultural production and protection of the environment. The VINVAL project
wanted to respond to this need by developing a map-based instrument for land use
planning at the scale of small watersheds (<1000 ha), managed by village com-
munities in Burkina Faso and Ghana. The instrument takes into account the balance
between production and protection objectives, and assists in making informed
decisions on land use activities of small holder farmers on both agricultural and
natural land. Such decisions must be based on knowledge of the productive value of
agricultural and natural land, and of the ecological functions of natural land. This
knowledge was gathered in cooperation with farmers and local experts in the
VINVAL project.
2) What was the institutional context (partners with which cooperated?)
The VINVAL consortium consisted of two strong national agricultural research insti-
tutes with divisions specialized in ecology and forestry: the Institut de l'Environnement
et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA) in Burkina Faso and the Crops Research
Institute (CRI) in Ghana. The other partners were European research institutes and
universities, specialized in agricultural economics and development sociology (the
Agricultural Economics Research Institute (LEI), the Netherlands) and in soil and
water resource management for sustainable agriculture (Timesis, Italy; Center for
Development Research, University of Bonn, Germany and Alterra, the Netherlands).
The VINVAL project is executed under the umbrella of the Inland Valley Consortium
(IVC), a large regional research and development consortium working on the sus-
tainable use of inland valleys in West Africa. INERA, CRI and Alterra are founding
members of IVC.
* Questionnaire received 2006, revised May 2007; Project leaders S. Verzandvoort-Van Dijck
(Alterra) and C.A. Van Diepen (Alterra)