Desert Environments of Republic of Chad - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 173

Desertification control is a major component of Chad's national environmental
protection. The national action plan to combat desertification (PDLCD) has the
following strategic orientation:

• Transferring natural resource management responsibilities to rural communities

• Awareness raising and information, training and extension work;

• Promoting environment-friendly;

• Protecting and regenerating environmental resources;

• Improving production systems;

• Establishing an institutional framework (see below).

The Chadian government elaborated and adopted the PDLCD in 1989. The
strategic orientations of the PDLCD hinge on the following four major axes:

• Transferring responsibilities for the management of natural resources to the rural

community: this must be translated at the judicial level, notably as concerns
tax laws, by a thorough reform of government's hitherto centralized approach.
The sectoral session of 1994 thus announced that rural communities would be
involved in the management of natural resources, in particular through a 'decen-
tralization of responsibilities'within the framework of village land management.

• Promoting public awareness by disseminating information and provision of

training as the principal means of involving the population.

• Promoting use of production systems that do not consume natural resources.

This involves choosing appropriate, cost-efficient regions in which to operate the
careful selection of resources, while monitoring natural resources and increasing
public understanding of them.

• Establishing an organizational structure that promotes inter-sectorality and the

integration of rural/environment development and is centered on adapting ex-
isting structures and projects rather than on introducing specific environmental
structures.

12 Case Studies of Projects Designed to Arrest and Reverse

Desertification

12.1 Case Study: Combating Sand Encroachment in Kanem

The area covered by this study, the Kanem, covers 115,000 km 2 and has a population
of 280,000 people. As have other Sahara and Sahel regions, the natural environments
of Kanem has suffered degradation in the past few decades, due to the prolonged
drought periods that have ruthlessly affected the country since the 1960s, and
continue to affect it.
Sand encroachment in Kanem is the most spectacular of the causes of deserti-
fication in the region. Currently, sand encroachment affects 64 % of the land and
threatens the livelihood of 14 % of the population of Chad. Primarily caused by