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Research mission

The first field research mission starts this Sunday 24 October!

Why? Remember, with the help of the Development Research Fund of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, we want to understand the indirect effects of our project on village communities. Because, although our project is full of good intentions and was enthusiastically received last spring, it is possible that our action has consequences that are not always desirable, and perhaps also unsuspected positive effects. We want to understand this so that we can act even more effectively and sustainably.

ForDev, the ETH institute for sustainable tropical forest management, is most familiar with this issue of human-nature interaction and will be conducting the study.

Before observing the impact of arboRise on people, we want to understand how people interact with trees and forests. This is the purpose of this first research mission, which will be followed by two other field missions.

This first mission is therefore about understanding the context of the Linko sub-prefecture and, in particular, the question of ‘what pushes a villager to cut or not to cut his trees‘. This is what Léa Ackerer, a specialist in sustainable development, will be observing over the next two weeks, in total immersion in two villages near Linko. Léa knows Guinea well as she has already conducted impact studies there for Biotope, an ecological consultancy company.

As this issue is independent of arboRise’s activities, Léa will stay in the villages of Forono and Kissidou (2 x one week), where no reforestation activities have yet taken place. In order to understand the context and the relationship between the population and the forest, it will be necessary to understand the issues of everyday life, the constraints, the culture, the social roles, etc. by meeting many people. In each village Léa will conduct semi-structured interviews with the village chief, 2 heads of family, 2 wives, the chief of the hunters, the village elder and the village youth. Since she will be staying with the local people with her interpreter, she will also get a lot of spontaneous information during these two weeks.

The journey from Europe went very well and the welcome in Forono was sensational:

accueil à Forono

Présentations à Forono