AGEREF/CL

• Promoting community-based management and sustainable use of natural resources and biological diversity;

• Valorising and managing natural resources to support local development;

• Promoting conflict prevention and management, peacebuilding, social cohesion and cross-border cooperation.

Founded on 25 February 1999 under the GEPRENAF project, the Association de Gestion des Ressources Naturelles et de la Faune de la Comoé-Léraba (AGEREF/CL) promotes community-based, sustainable management of natural resources and wildlife in the Diéfoula and Logoniégué classified forests, later merged into the Comoé-Léraba classified forest and partial wildlife reserve — a 125,000-ha natural area in western Burkina Faso, on the border with Côte d’Ivoire. Since its creation, AGEREF/CL has governed and sustainably managed this massif and its periphery as a community concession: developing and protecting resources (infrastructure, track maintenance, village-based surveillance), ecological monitoring (wildlife inventories), valorisation of resources (sport hunting, ecotourism, fishing, honey, shea butter) and climate adaptation/mitigation (land restoration, agroforestry, renewable energy). Since 2018, on top of the worsening climate crisis, the area has faced a compounded security and humanitarian crisis: repeated terrorist attacks causing civilian and military casualties, destroying schools, health centres, water points, roads and markets, and driving displacement that strains resources in host communities. The combination of attacks, crop and property destruction, and rising community conflict has plunged the region into severe hardship, disproportionately affecting women and young people (loss of livelihoods, gender-based violence, school dropout). To keep operating under this triple fragility (security, climate, humanitarian), AGEREF/CL has broadened its approach to include humanitarian aid, conflict prevention and management, peacebuilding and social cohesion, cross-border cooperation and post-crisis recovery.