Renaturation of the city of Abomey-Calavi: Towards a nurturing and biodiverse city

The city of Abomey-Calavi is the second most populous city in Benin (117,824 inhabitants) with an annual population increase estimated at 6.7%. This population growth (the population tripled between 2002 and 2021) leads to accelerated urbanization causing numerous environmental and social pressures. From an environmental point of view, this urbanization is fragmenting habitats and contributing to the loss of local biodiversity, the extent of which is still poorly known. In addition, it leads to an acceleration of increasingly extreme climatic events (floods, temperature records, etc.) as well as a reduction in natural, agricultural and forest areas and associated agricultural intensification causing the gradual disappearance of local varieties. , the massive use of chemical inputs. From a social point of view, this loss of agricultural land contributes to food insecurity (according to the WFP, in 2017, 10% of the city’s population was in severe food insecurity) as well as to the discomfort in the environment. urban (the ratio of green spaces/inhabitants of the city being 0.06m²/inhabitant whereas the WHO standard is 10m²/inhabitant).

At the end of 2020, the city of Abomey-Calavi identified and secured several administrative reserves, some of which are untapped.