Projekt

Mining in Africa offers opportunities for socio-economic development. However, its corollary post-mining land degradation constitutes a serious threat to local livelihood and ecosystems through alteration of vegetation and soil productivity, conflicts for the remaining land and pressure on the existing social and economic networks. The situation is particularly relevant for Burkina Faso where gold mining is rapidly developing, causing biophysical and socio-economic challenges. Leading post-mining areas back into production for local well-being is a difficult and complex task from a technical, institutional and social point of view. The proposed project intends to identify locally viable restoration options contributing to local livelihood and the ecological stabilization of degraded landscapes, and to define possibilities to promote them as a basis for sustainable development. The research will be implemented in four consecutive steps each one building on the former one: (1) Consequences of mining on woodlands ecosystems, local livelihood and the socio-economic networks, (2) Natural and societal potentials for restoring degraded sites and stabilizing local production systems, (3) Investigating economic and institutional context conditions for the stimulation of local potentials for action, (4) Investigating possibilities/ strategies for restoration/reclamation of degraded sites. The project will generate knowledge and restoration strategies for the benefit of local farmers, mining companies and will participate to capacity building of the post-docs, the local students and local technicians and farmers.

• Prof. Dr. Eva Schlecht

  Universität Göttingen
  Fakultät für Agrarwissenschaften
  Department für Nutztierwissenschaften
  Abteilung Tierhaltung in den Tropen und Subtropen
  Göttingen
  

• Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Schareika

  Universität Göttingen
  Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät
  Institut für Ethnologie
  Göttingen
  

• Dr. Sidzabda Djibril Dayamba

  Center for International Forestry
  Research (CIFOR)
  Ouagadougou 06
  Burkina Faso