Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) is a simple and cheap method allowing re-foresting without planting trees: gardeners identify and select the better tree shoots in their fields and get rid of other sprouts. They regularly attend to the selected saplings in order to strengthen the soil’s productivity and consequently secure a range of products (wood, fruit…). ANR has been used in Dankassari for a few years.

It allows for a rational management of wood resources. Clashes are less acute between local timber users for cooking, and environmental agents wanting to forbid that custom.

To develop it, the following activities are proposed by the district supervisor:

• Training monitors to develop soil Assisted Natural Regeneration.
  It consists in training 14 monitors from various areas of the rural district for two periods of three days and five days, both in theory and practice, and then monitor their activity and regularly bring them together for exchanges on good methods. The training session includes field visits and practice.
• Producing forest saplings to favor biological diversity in fields: it will take place in two plant nurseries located at Dankassari’s Town Hall and in the Marake Rogo market gardening: 9000 saplings have been planted in each of the two years and shared out among willing residents for their fields or concessions: thorn bushes, neeem, moringa, baobab. Moringa plants, fast growing even in arid soil, and with highly nutritive leaves allow for both essential nutrients and financial income, as they sell easily.

On both sites a local supervisor will be in charge of implementing.

Course of activities}} } A mission to set up ANR village committees was carried out from 26 to 28/10/2021 in fourteen villages of the Rural Commune of Dankassari: Askia, Faya, Gougui, Lougou, Bawada Guida, Tougana, Tani, Koukoki, Guizara, Kolmey, Kamrey Arawa, Kamrey, Bawada Dagi and Goubey.

The purpose of the mission is to set up, at the level of each of the fourteen villages, a committee responsible for the local management of forest resources in the developed areas (fields, plantation sites). A village assembly was held at the level of each locality in order to choose volunteers to form the ANR committee, choice of brigadiers, and a supervisor.
After explanations on assisted natural regeneration, the role of the brigadiers and that of the supervisor, the composition of the committee, the mission set up an office and five members responsible for monitoring the management of forest resources. in the soil of the village. After this explanation, the populations of each locality proceeded to the choice of the members of their committee. The list of names of the members of the committees set up in the various villages was appended. These are all volunteers.

Then the training of the fourteen supervisors took place. The theoretical phase took place from November 1 to 5, 2021 and the practical phase from November 6 to 10, 2021. This training allowed the supervisors to have notions on the technical standards of assisted natural regeneration (maintenance of releases and young shoots), the advantages and constraints of ANR, the method of data collection, fertilizers and their modes of use and the different roles that trees play in our lives (ecological, economic and social).

Seventy volunteer brigadiers are at work in a total of fourteen villages.