Environmental education and desertification control in the Sahel

Introduction:

Nowadays we cannot talk about the sahel without talking about the environmental and siocio-economic situation of its member countries.This African region which gathers countries sharing the same feature of being arid and semi-arid is threatened by a great demographic growth and climatic « aleas » from which the agricultural field which is the principal economy of the population depends.Niger, as the second widest country of this geographical area follows this Sahelian dynamics.That's why in the process of applying Post-Rio convention the governement focused its efforts on the fighting against desertification and the effects of drought. To achieve the expect results in this domain, the government and others actors intervening in the environmental sector have put foward the education and responsabilisation of the youth in their evironment due to the fact they constitute the major part of the country population. It is in this trend that the Sahelian youth platform which is a grouping of youth organisation engaged since 1998 is created in the education and mobilisation of young people in the environmental issues.The activites of this collective are involved in a program which integrate three (3) main domain of environmental education Through this communication we are going to present this program, the concept of environmental education: its definition, targuet public and its application domains.We will then see the relationship between environnental education and sustainable development and end with the difficulties encountered in the application of this program

I. Presentation of the environmental education program of the Saheliam youth platform:

The Sahelian youthplatform environmental education program come out after an observation:In the Nigerien educationnal system no clear approach is made on the environment.Therefore the process of desertification increases with the demographic growth and cyclical droughts, thus « dramatizing » the living conditions of the population and growing incertainty in the future of the oncoming generation.That's why this program is elaborated in order to promote the necessity of an environmental education from childhood to age adult.Its main goals is to conscientize Nigerien youth on the environmental problems of the country and mobilize them on the realisation of the sustainable development objectives. To achieve this end , the proram included three(3) main components:

- The "education and sensitizing" component which aims at spreading the national texts on environment and conscitizing the youth in order to make them have a better view on the environment. This will allow the cleansing of the frame of life of the population and limit the ecological damages which contributes to the process of the desertification

- The socio-economical development activities component which aims at to impulse and guide the young people in the off season guardenings and others activities susceptible of generating revenus useful in the fight against poverty so as to reduce their vulnerability to hunger and food safety.

- The capacities reinforcement component which through some theorical and practical trainings aims at providing school teachers and others animators with enough competences which allows them to work better on the field of environmental education. This program is being applied in four (4) regions of Niger (Agadez, Diffa, Maradi and Tillabery) and concerns all schooled, ex-scholedand non schooled young people

II. Environmental education Concept: (definition, targuet public and application domains
2.1 Definition: Environnemental education is a wide concept which definition leads to many contreverses because of its polysemic features.But According to the objectives set to the environmental education program in the Sahelian youth Platform, we consider the one given in the intergouvernmental lecture on the environmental education held in Russia in 1987: « the environmental education is permanent process through which indiciduals become conscious of their environment and acquire knowledges,values, aptitudes, experiences and determination which allow them to act in order to solve present and fututre environmental problems. From its definition we notice that the environmental education goes beyond a simple sensitization of population to limit environmental damages; it is a profond change in behaviour for a better integration of man in his environment(economic,social and ecologic).
2.2 Targuet public: The environmental education program of Sahelian youth platform concern all schooling and non schooled young people living in its area of intervention.Their age is supposed to be between 5 and 36 years both sexes.
2.3. Domain of intervention and pedagogical tools: The program intervens in four(4) regions of Niger and take into account three (3) main domain of education: formal, informal and non formal
The formal domain: Here the programs intervenes in schools to form and sensitize students and teachers on the environnemental issues such as desertification control, environmental hygiene, techniques of planting trees, etc.The pedagogical tools used in this domain are rounds in the nature, debates and test gaims on environmental .
Non formal domain: In this domain the environmental education is done in the alphabetization centers and concerns ex-schooled and non schooled young people.In this fact some practical trainings in fonctional alphabetization are given to them on the technics of soils recuperation, natural ressources management, environmental hygiene and decentralisation.The pedagogical tools used here are some posters, debates and sketches.

III. Environmental education and sustainable development : In order to contribute to the realization of the objectives of sustainable developement, the environmental education should take into account the actions of poverty control .That's why the platform in its environmental education program, has stressed the development of activites of production and thoses which generating revenus to the young people in order to combat desertification and contribute to a better natural ressources management.In fact , a project of the promotion of Practical activities and production in execution in 43 schools which allows students to acquire a professionalizing formation in « agro-syvo-pastoralisme », carpentary, sewing . In the others fields of education, the young are mobilized on the recuperation of the soils.For instance, more than 150 recuperated acres are shared to them to encourage them practizing off season gardenings in the dry seasons so as to fight against hunger and chronical food shift.On the side of that, a micro-credit is given to heses young people to help them practice others activities than agriculture.This has allowed up to 170 young people to stand on their revenus.

IV. Difficulties encountered: Even though it gathers a great number of young people , the environmentl education program of Sahelian youth platform encounter many kind of problems in its execution among which we can mention:
- The political instability the country has gone through from 1996 to 2000: this prevented Nigerien authorities from giving much concerns to the environnemental sector like others sectors.
- Lacke of expereince and expertise of many youth organisation members of Sahelian youth platform in the environmental education domain.
- Insufficiency and lateness observed in the giving of funds alloted to the program affect its effective execution.
- Unavailabilty of young people at some given periods of the year.
- Lake of concertation with others stakeholders intervening inthe area concerned by the program

Conclusion: Through its Capacity of making people responsible of their environment and mobilized them for the realisation of the objectives set for a sound developement , the environmental education constitutes a means of constructing a better Sahel.It is therefore necessary to allote much ressources in this domain and encourage concertations and communication between the intervening actors.