Community management committees established to co-manage Guinea’s Ziama Biosphere Reserve

The N’Zérékoré Forest Centre (CFZ) and its partner Fauna and Flora International (FFI) with funding from the EU-funded Programme for the Preservation of Forest Ecosystems in West Africa (PAPFor) have set up community governance structures and management systems for the effective administration of the Ziama Biosphere Reserve in southeastern Guinea adjoining the border with Liberia. The proper management of the reserve is of high priority, as it will contribute to the water and food security of neighbouring icommunities and help build their resilience to climate change.
To this end, a workshop was organized by FFI in July 2023 to define the criteria for membership of the Community Management Committees (CMC) and how communications between the management bodies at the different levels will be handled. The workshop saw a total of 109 participants, including 28 women, representatives of the 32 communities, mayors of the five rural communities of Ziama, sub-prefects, forestry chiefs, conservation officers, partner NGOs, civil society organisations and government services operating around Ziama.
To promote better governance in the Ziama landscape, CMCs were set up at the local, communal, and central levels in communities indigenous to the reserve. To date, 31 out of 32 CMCs have been set up at the local level. The communal level comprises the five communities of Ziama, and the central level acts as the coordinating committee for the Ziama landscape. The chairman of the Kpoda committee declared his pleasure with the recent development, saying: “I, Soupou Koivogui, would like to thank the people of Kpoda for choosing me to head the committee, and I pledge to the entire assembly that I will support the Ziama managers and promote transparent governance in our community.”