orou's: Benin fieldwork stories!

Using the floristic composition of the main ecosystems, the soil and the climate, Delvaux, Houinato and co developped a map of the phytogeographic regions of Benin. This map is widely used by scientists working on Benin's forest or conservation of biodiversity. in Benin, Khaya senegalensis is distributed from the 8th latitude North to the 12th. For my study, i choosed a total of 12 Khaya populations througouth his distribution range. i got 6 populations in the district 6, 3 populations in the district 7 and 3 others in the district 8.

did i tell you i am working on Khaya senegalensis in Benin? i think yes, if not, look on the left side of this blog or i will just give you a detail. i have been seriously working on that plant a.k.a African dry zone mahogany for the past three years now. i am focusing on Benin although my future plan is to cover up the entire distribution range of the species in Africa. I am looking at the ethnoecology of harvesting Khaya and also i'm interested in digging out the genetic and ecological patterns behind his likelihood to escape extenction due to heavy and frequent harvest of the species by all sort of people. i put my dissertation title as 'assessing the impact of harvesting Khaya senegalensis by indigenous people in Benin, West Africa'. although the tree is harvested for timber, foliage and bark, i decided to focus on the indigenous uses of the species. indigenous people in Benin, mainly Fulani for the foliage and all sort of ethnic groups for the bark, are harvesting the species for different purposes. my supervisor, Dr Tamara Ticktin, and my self are interested in looking at the effect of indigenous foliage and bark harvest on the genetic, the dynamic of the populations. at the same time, we are looking at how fulani people perceive the threat to harvest and how do they adapt their harvesting practices in term of space, time, and means, cultural regulations,.. this is probably not a new discovery as other scientists are working on similar subject, but for the country, it is a new axis of research. in addition, we are looking at the combined effect of harvesting many parts (foliage and bark) of the same individual tree. if you are interested in this research and wanting to support with ideas, funding, partnership, leave a comments and contact me at ogaoue[at]gmail[dot]com.

Here is how an unpruned Khaya senegalensis tree looks like. The main branches originated almost all from the same point and grow up to the top of the tree. When the tree is pruned, part of the branches are cut down with leaves for cattle to feed on.

In some places in Benin, you'll find Khaya trees that are not completely pruned, like in this case in the W National Park. They are many reason that explain that in the same place, some trees are pruned and some are not: the size of the tree, the presence of other fodder tree species around, the presence of some ants, the pruning history of the tree, its location, the time of the day or the period of the year at which the fulani came to the tree, etc.

In the North of Benin, Khaya trees are mostly pruned to death, although you'll find the same thing in some place in the Central part of the country. This picture was taken in November 2004, while i was heading to Guilmaro with my field team. This Khaya tree has been pruned almost every year and accordingly developed this architecture feature. This is typical of heavily and frequently pruned Khaya!