Mbegue: The disingenuous destruction of a Sahelian Forest

The Senegalese government's decision to permit the transfer of 45 000 ha of forest at Mbegue, used by agropastoralists, to peanut fields controlled by the Mouride brotherhood, is part of the larger trend toward privatizing communal pastures for individual and sedentary agricultural production. This negatively affects not only the agropastoral livelihood system of the FulBe, but also the environmental sustainability of the entire production system in an area only marginally suited for agriculture. The article addresses some of the questions that have been raised about the recent deforestation, with particular attention to the larger policy implications of changing land-use patterns in Senegal's Sahelian belt. It starts with a brief overview of Mouride land colonization, then deals with the issues of conflict with pastoral populations; environmental protection strategies, namely the establishment of classified forests and sylvo-pastoral reserves; the displaced FulBe pastoralists; mobility and the agropastoral livelihood system, and the compression of pastoralist space. The situation facing Mbegue in 1991 is outlined, as are the effects on pastoral populations of deforestation. It is difficult to dispute that 40 years of use by more than 6000 pastoralists and their animals has wrought nothing like the damage caused by 3 weeks of Mouride deforestation. The discipline and organization that have made the Mouride brotherhood so successful in colonizing new lands also gives them virtually unchallenged political strength. Senegal's acquiescence to expansionist Mouride land claims makes a mockery of donors' continued funding of environmental regeneration programmes. (CAB Abstracts)