Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Kathrin Schreckenberg 95

consisting of dense dry forest and gallery forests. During clearing, farmers

retain mature individuals of a number of useful tree species in their fields

(Photo 1), thus converting the landscape into a characteristic parkland. These

are land use systems in which trees are deliberately preserved in association

with crops and/or animals in a spatially dispersed arrangement and constitute

the predominant agroforestry system in semi-arid West Africa (Nair 1993;

Bonkoungou et al. 1994). Parklands are usually dominated by one or two tree

species, which may vary with climatic zone and agricultural practices (Boffa

1999). In the case of shea, the typical companion tree is the African locust-

bean, the seeds of which are fermented to make a protein-rich seasoning

used in most sauces in the Bassila area.

Photo 1. Farmers retain mature individuals of useful tree species in fields

(Photo by K. Schreckenberg)

THE PRODUCTION-TO-CONSUMPTION SYSTEM

The resource base

Shea is one of several species (others are the African locust-bean and the

timber tree Khaya senegalensis (Desr.) A. Juss.) in Benin for which farmers

must obtain a permit before clearing. As the underfunded forestry department

is not in a position to enforce these regulations (Schreckenberg 1999), it is

just as well that the law mirrors local practice. As also reported from Mali

(Bagnoud et al. 1995), men in the study area stated that they often maintained

more shea trees than they consider optimal from a crop point of view because

they were a key source of income for their wives.

06SHEA.P65 95 22/12/2004, 11:04