Our environmental project in Senegal is supporting people to take care of their forest - including 126 beekeepers, who are helping with reforestation and protecting the forest against fires.

Video transcript:

“UP’s project really helped us and now we have 126 beekeepers. All of the hives are placed strategically in forests that need them most, so the beekeepers are also engaged in reforestation and protecting the forest against bush fires. The area where the hives are kept is really clean – they are all well maintained so there are fewer bush fires, and fewer people who are coming to the forests to cut down trees.”

“We used to have some challenges with accessing a market for our honey. But UP’s project supported us to attend some fairs and markets in Dakar, as well helping us with our branding and packaging, which made it much easier for us to sell our products. For the past two years we have been improving the quality of our honey and increasing the quantity produced. At the start we used to sell 100 litres per month, but now we sell around 400 to 500 litres and that is because of UP’s project which reinforced our marketing and production”.

Context:

The EU-funded ‘Gouvernance Environnementale Communautaire’ (or ‘Community based Environmental Governance), began in 2018 and has been instrumental in reducing illegal logging and bush fires in the Casamance area of Senegal. With significant impacts on the environment, value chain addition and people’s livelihoods, this project has contributed to the increased commitment of the community to protect their natural resources.