Senegal

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The challenge: tackling the causes of biodiversity erosion in Senegal

Senegal is an ecological frontier where semi-arid grasslands, seafront and tropical rainforest converge, with a wide range of bioclimatic regions. Senegal's climate is Sahelian, with a rainy season from June to October, and the country is bathed by four major rivers - whose basin covers 37% of the country. Senegal has 46% of its land devoted to agriculture, with 16% considered arable (cultivable under rain-fed conditions). Forests cover 42% of the total land area, and the country also boasts 1,049 square kilometers of sand dunes along its coast and some 4,000 square kilometers of estuaries and mudflats.

This geographical situation has endowed Senegal with great biodiversity. Although large mammals have disappeared from the western part of the country, having been displaced by human settlement, animals such as elephants, antelopes, lions, panthers, cheetahs and jackals can still be encountered in the Niokolo Koba National Park - a World Heritage Site - in the eastern part of the country. The Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981, is home to over a million birds, including the African spoonbill, purple heron, white pelican and cormorant. Basse Casamance National Park, in the south-west of the country, is home to hippos, leopards, crocodiles and water buffalo.

Senegal's National Biodiversity Action Plan identifies several activities as the main drivers of biodiversity loss. These include habitat destruction and fragmentation due to urbanization, infrastructure development (dams), bush fires, over-exploitation of natural resources (including illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing), deforestation, overgrazing and poaching, invasive alien species, pollution (water, soil and air), climate change and adverse weather conditions, coastal erosion, salinization and acidification are all threats to Senegal's biodiversity.

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In Senegal, the process of negotiating voluntary commitments took place in the Thiès region.

For the fishing and agriculture sectors, five local workshops were organized in the form of serious games using the Terristories® tool. This innovative approach to facilitating dialogue led to the emergence of an autonomous multi-stakeholder dynamic for monitoring and progressively enriching local commitments.

These five workshops were complemented by a national and regional dialogue workshop in Dakar, and a feedback workshop in the Thiès region. They brought together local and national authorities, producers' umbrella organizations, as well as several local civil society organizations. In all, fourteen representatives from the fishing and agricultural sectors took part in the dialogue. The dialogue workshop in Dakar also involved a representative of the mining administration.

Options chosen and scenarios discussed

Country profiles IPPS

Notes de politiques publiques

After supporting the 15 countries in the identification of priority sectors, and facilitating the commitment of private-sector players in favor of biodiversity, BIODEV2030 is building on the momentum created to roll out the voluntary commitments on a pilot territory scale, and to strengthen the integration of biodiversity into countries' sectoral public policies.

The sectors targeted for Phase II are market gardening, pastoralism, mining and quarrying, and artisanal fishing. In order to identify the most relevant sectoral public policy instruments (IPPS) to be created, abolished or modified, BIODEV2030 has called on Altai Consulting. This support is intended to contribute to the coherence of economic, sectoral (agriculture, mining, fisheries, forestry, etc.) and environmental (particularly biodiversity-related) policies, a key aspect of the mainstreaming approach. This global integration of biodiversity helps to prevent economic and sectoral policies from encouraging actors (producers) to adopt production practices that are harmful to nature, in contradiction with a country's biodiversity commitments.

Altai has developedIPPS sheets for each country. The Senegal sheet is available via the button above.

InSenegal, a specific approach has been adopted. In response to a request from the Minister of the Environment, the project supports the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy by developing action sheets on the priority themes of the National Roadmap. Three areas related to priority biodiversity issues have thus been identified, represented by three iconic regions of Senegal: peri-urban areas, coastal areas, and forests. Theaction sheets will help identify specific activities and productive practices that reconcile biodiversity conservation with economic development, and should be replicable by the government at other sites facing similar biodiversity challenges.

With the aim of helping stakeholders in pilot areas (private, public, CSOs) to collectively define actions to reduce pressures on biodiversity, transition projects towards nature-positive practices, or even nature-based solutions, will be developed on the basis of the change actions identified during the multi-stakeholder dialogue, and then brought to the attention of potential funders.

In Senegal, the Thiès region has been selected as the site for the pilot project. This project is to be developed through sectoral dialogue organized as part of a serious game (TERRISTORIES®). The game sessions were organized by LEAF-Inspiring Change and CIRAD between November and December 2025.