AFAN is an association of indigenous African NGOs working in the field of management and conservation of tropical forests. The main objectives are to collect and disseminate information among members and to share experiences about the sustainable management of natural resources. The AFAN Coordinator is Mr Louis Djomo, P.O. Box 2503, Yaounde, Cameroon.
Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries with few economic resources available to protect its unique and fantastic biological heritage. In particular, there is a great shortage of trained Malagasy conservationists.
The Libanona Ecology Centre was set up in 1995 by Mark Fenn of the World Wide Fund for Nature, in Southern Madagascar, to help address this problem. Classrooms and a library have been built using funds from the Andrew Lees Memorial Trust, started after the tragic death of Friends of the Earth's Campaigns Director in Madagascar in 1995.
It will be managed by a committee of eight Malagasy Professors. Various research and teaching programs are being developed which cover a broad range of disciplines, as well as anthropology, sociology and resource economics. Conservationists trained at the Centre will teach in the surrounding villages and work with local people to find more sustainable ways of farming and timber-cropping, to allow the forests to regenerate.
Mark Fenn is visiting the UK in October 1996 and would like to establish contacts with British universities and | conservation NGOs interested in the work of the Centre and in undertaking joint projects, although funding would need to be sought for any such projects.
For further information, contact Dr Christine Orengo in London on: 0171-419-3284 or email: orengo@biochmistry.ucl.ac.uk
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has produced a conservation atlas of the tropical forests of Africa. This detailed reference work is available at a cost of £65 from the IUCN Publications Unit, 219c Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 ODL, UK. Tel: 01223 277894. Fax: 01223 277175. A volume on Latin America is now completed and available for purchase also.
Tree Aid, established in 1987, is a national charity which raises funds to help village communities in arid Africa to survive by achieving food and environmental security through the planting and management of trees.
Tree Aid invites applications from any NGOs working towards these aims in: Sudan, Ethiopia, Benin, Mali, Northern Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The Director of Tree Aid is Miranda Spitteler. For further information on how to apply for funds, write to Tree Aid, 28 Hobbs Lane, Bristol, BSI 5ED. Tel: 0117 9349442. Fax: 0117 9349592.
SOS Sahel, founded in 1983 by the late Baroness Jane Ewart-Biggs, aims to counter the causes of hunger in the vast, dry land region of the Sahel which includes the poorest countries in Africa.
Reafforestation schemes are high on its agenda of activities and many projects involve the planting of shelterbelts to stop sand dunes invading agricultural land and villages. In Niger, Sudan, Mali and Eritrea, cooperative management of natural forests is saving trees from destruction at a fraction of the cost of new plantations.
SOS Sahel works closely with local people to improve the local environment over the longer term and to help people towards renewed self-sufficiency. SOS Sahel, 1 Tolpuddle Street London, N1 OXT. Tel: 0171 837 9129. Fax: 0171 837 0856. Email: sossaheluk@gn.apc.o
The Universities of Yaounde I, Cameroon, and York, UK, with the support of the British Council, are collaborating in research and teaching in tropical forest ecology.
Research is concentrated on the below-ground ecology of natural and managed forest, including root growth and architecture, mycorrhizal ecology and rhizobium-legume interactions. Collaboration in teaching includes the joint development of an innovative module for teaching forest ecology to Yaounde and York students.
For further information contact Dr Calvin Dytham, Dept. of Biology, University of York, York, Y01 5DD.