Management of biodiversity in Sahel

In co-operation with IUCN and Department of National Parks, Danida has supportet a

formulation of a management plan of the Sahelian fauna reserve of Ferlo -11.207 km²,

Senegal.

A corner stone in the project was information derived from satellites combined with faunal

and socio-economic surveys. The build-up decision support system provided information

on:

- biodiversity, flora and fauna habitats

- natural resources and resource utilization

- annual update on ongoing desertification and land degradation processes

- suitable sites for biodiversity management

The groudbreaking methods developed during this project have implication for management

of biodiversity and natural resource utilization in the region.

We demonstrated the use of differences in Integrated Vegetation Indexes from NOAA satellites

that covers most of West Africa: it reveals resource presure in a sutable scale, especially for

boreholes and natural ponds.

The Landsat based model to assess biodiversity (number of different birds) give an effective

overview of areas containing high biological diversity.      

Prins, E (1997): Remote sensing data for biodiversity management in Sahelian, Africa.

                        EOM Vol. 6, No. 8, p 18-20.

Client: Danida 1996-99 Danish link

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