A Message from The President

Growing up on a farm I thought of autumn as a time for harvest, a time to ready for winter. At the medical school I now see autumn as a time for new growth as we are reenergized with new faces, new ideas, new voices. Learn more about those students many of you will be mentoring and precepting in coming years in “Characteristics of the Class of 2010”. New growth and new direction are themes in the message from our president, Chuck Breen, as he discusses Academy directions, and in the message from Rob Beattie, as he describes the new face and direction of the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Read about the proposed mentoring opportunities for medical students in the article by Drs. Rob Beattie and Charlie Christianson.

C rimes related to Forest remain a serious concern for all states. Indeed,with poaching bushfire sawmilling and various other traffics, forests are the scene of major illicit activities affecting both forest cover, environment and people.
In addition, the preservation and rehabilitation of forests has not always been a priority for many states! However, global stakes start to overcome domestic resistance,in part thanks to the multiple initiatives (COP, etc) and accessible financing for the sustainable development of the continent.
In this environment of permanent challenges, Cote d'Ivoire, the world's first producer of cocoa, as many tropical countries,is facing a drastic reduction in its forest, mainly linked to uncontrolled exploitation.
As a reminder, from 16 million hectares of forestat the beginning of the 20th century, we have only about 3.4 million hectares forests left in 2015, that is to say a rate of 200,000 hectares of forest disappearing per year. At this pace, ivorian forest will have disappeared within a decade. In addition, about 12% of global emissions of greenhouse gases result from deforestation. By 2030, the pressure on the forestwill rise sharply, in particular because of the accelerated urbanization growth, the creation of new industrial zones and farms.
Therefore, it becomes important for the Government to consider a new approach reclaiming and increasing the national forest area. Thus, in this context of implementation of the Government's program, the Ministry of Water and Forests brings in a new policy of Forest preservation, Rehabilitation and Expansion (PPREF),based upon the three following pillars: • The preservation of biodiversity; • The maintenance of favorable climate for the developmentof socio-economical activities and agricultural area; • The respect of Côte d'Ivoire's international commitments...
The major innovation contained in this policy is that the forest preservation, rehabilitation and expansion efforts will go alongside with those of the state and the national community, mainly on private-public partnerships essential for financing the implementation of an ambitious policy.
The Ministry of Water and Forests therefore, calls for a national awareness for forest restoration to achieve the sustainability of the forestry ecosystems, essential to the harmonious and and sustainable development of Côte d'Ivoire.

Minister of Water and Forests
June 2018

I/ CONTEXT
From 1960 to today, Côte d'Ivoire has experienced a sharp decline in its forest cover. Indeed, the most recent statistics on forest cover show that, the area of these forests the area of its went from 16 million hectares in 1900 to 7.8 million hectares in 1990 and 3.4 million hectares in 2015.
The main causes of this drawback are: extensive agriculture, forests exploitation to meet the needs of timber and wood energy, public authorities lack of capacity to enforce the regulations on forests protection. The continuation of this trend would have dramatic consequences, in the short, medium and long term, at ecological and economic levels but also social because of the tensions caused by the race for illegal occupation of the lands.
Aware of the stakes, of their accountability to the people of Côte d'Ivoire, but also to the international community, the ivorian authorities intend to develop the forestry policy whose main motivations are formulated through this new policy of forest preservation, rehabilitation and expansion.
Approved by the Presidential Council on Thursday, May 2018 and adopted by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, May 23, 2018 ; the policy declaration on forest preservation, rehabilitation and expansion is stated as follows :

• The four (04) goals of the policy which take into account both the rate of 20%
of forest cover desired for our country than the development policy of the territory and the performance of agricultural policy ; • The four (04) principles which guided this policy formulation ;

• The six (06) main strands of the policy ;
In addition, the main elements of the policy document are completed by : • The framework for implementing the policy ; • Current and future achievements, initiatives and stakes related to the implementation of that policy.

The goal to preserve biological biodiversity
The diversity of ecosystems and both animal and plant species has always been a peculiarity of Côte d'Ivoire. It has allowed its development and is a real source of attraction.
This is about preserving that biodiversity which contributes through the opportunities offered by genetic selection, to improve the performance of agriculture and forestry.
It is also preserving and protecting molecules which can be exploited for medicinal purposes by the pharmaceutical industry.

The goal to ensure ''national climate'' conducive to agricultural activities and living conditions
This is about preserving and restoring an environment conducive to the maintenance of prosperity of agricultural activities and living conditions, including prevention of pollutionrelated diseases, soil protection, reduction of evapotranspiration, the regulation of the water cycle and floods of watercourses, the stopping of drought progression to the south.

The goal to comply with "global climate" commitments
In line with the international community and faithful to the commitments taken in the framework of the Paris Agreement of December 2015 to opt for « zero deforestation faming ». Côte d'Ivoire intends to fight climate change by creating the best conditions for forest rehabilitation and sequestration of carbon by all means.
Rather than measuring its performance according to the sole criteria of the coverage rate, it intends to measure them on a criterion of the amount of carbon sequestered, preserved and planted natural forests, including agro-industrial and industrial plantations.

The socio economic objectives
It is a question of building the forest resources necessary for the maintenance and sustainable development of a competitive timber industry, to the satisfaction of wood energy of the people (firewoods, charcoal). These needs will remain for a long time regardless the efforts made to develop the use of alternatives energies (butane gas) or to reduce consumption (by the generalization of improved stoves) It could also be, in a reasoned way to recover degraded spaces (fallows) to develop new agricultural activities, diversified, profitable sustainable and environment friendly.
The keeping and the development of these activities will create sustainable employments.

Voluntarism
The voluntarism of Côte d'Ivoire is the result of the awareness of its responsibilities regarding both its people and the international community, awareness of the emergency but also the opportunities offered by the new models that have already succeeded worlwide to face the challenges of the same type.
This voluntarism will be expressed by the general mobilization of all public and private actors and the strict application of the new rules of forest management.

Realism
Actually, classified forest strongly colonized by the agricultural activities and by farmers will not be fully reclaimed. Indeed, the resultof the assessment of the action to clear out more than 1,4 million people living in the classified forest (2015 assessment) and their decent relocation out of these, need to mobilize important financial resources which the state does not have.
Realism also dictates that public structures alone cannot be, neither qualitatively nor quantitively, efficient planners and ''guardians'' and that it is necessary to contract with the operators from private sectors.

REALISM
Realism also commands to recognize that the acceptance of public and private actors of the funding plan for reforestation program is related to the choice of trees to plant and which should have a certain economic value for those actors.

Considering that all trees sequestrate carbon
It is necessary, in fact, to recognize that all the trees present in different type of forest, but also in a agro-industrial plantations (rubber, cashew nut, palm tree etc…) contribute to carbon sequestration.

Adopting the logic of tree cultivation
This logic dictates that it is necessary for forest resources dedicated to the production of lumber, wood energy and carbon sequestration aremade for their needs by public or private operators.
This principle will also guide the new agricultural sector policy intensification by becoming the master word.

Protecting trees and forests by introducing into the Forest Code, a new concept, that of Agro-Forest.
This new Agro-forest concept refers to classified areas in which the practice of agroforestry is allowed. This concept will provide a scale more graduated and more adapted to the current reality of territories, characterized by a significant mix of land use and presence of forest scattered, surrounded by economic activities and human settlements dangerous for their preservation.

Strictly protect classified forest conserved to more than 75%
Some classified forest could be categorized as protected areas, in the short term or at the expiration of logging concession agreements attached to it. The national forest inventory and subsequent studies will certainly identify other classified forest suitable for upgrading.

Strictly respect the logic of classified forest and texts applicable in the classified forest slightly damaged
The classified forests concerned are those degraded to less than 25% and those whose degradation rate is between 25 and 75%.
It is about getting out of these forests and resettling, in the respect of human rights, the relatively small populations that have settled there.
It is also about enabling these populations to exploit them sustainably in the framework of conventional forest concessions for sustainable development, experimented during the implementation of the forestry sector project in 1990. These concessions are awarded to competent and loyal operators whose commitments under the corresponding agreements must be strictly controlled by the forest sector which is empowered to exercise control over their implementation.

In whole or in part, in Agro-forest, but this is no way to decommission to make them ordinary rural areas, the State remains in any case owner.
This redevelopment will take into account other criteria such as the wealth of biodiversity, or the size of the concerned areas.
It will involve the design of relevant integrated management plans, allowing to preserve the existing forest heritage, to reconstitute it progressively on all spaces that lend themselves to it.
It will also be admitted in these areas, under clear and strict conditions framed and environmentally friendly agricultural activities (cocoa-culture under shading in particular) others supervised economic activities (pastoralism, ecotourism) and human settlements.
Once the latter are unambiguously admitted, the populations of these areas will or will have to progressively benefit from the basic social services of which they are now cruelly lacking (rural roads, schools, dispensaries, electricity, water, drinking…) This will in principle be the direct role of the state.
Peripheral areas interacting with agro-forests economically and/ or social will be taken into account in the development of their management plans and development. The implementation of integrated management plans for agro forests must be carried out by preferentially private professional and credible developers who will be framed by a solid public structure. This public structure will be mainly responsible for doing that is to say define development standards, to pass agro-forestry concession agreement of sustainable developmentand to control the good execution.

To all residual forest patches in the rural domain that are suitable for respect for acquired, customary or modern land rights.
In this line, some residual forest areas in the rural area have already been identified by the exploitation of satellite images of 2015.
There are about 325 spaces of more than 70% of the forests, representing, almost 260 000 hectares, currently nor adequately protected by texts nor monitored and therefore seriously threatened.
In this space, sacred forest will deserve special attention.

Economically (lumber, wood energy) and ecologically.
In the context of this spatial planning, it will be necessary to develop sustainable forestry, which plays a major role in rural area, in the continuity of compensatory reforestation successfully carried out for a few years.
In addition to this economic role for the people, this sustainable forestry should contribute to the ecological balance of national territory in general and large agglomerations in particular.

CHAPTER II
Any evolution or change management requires an adaptation of structures involved in the implementation of a policy. The achievement of the objectives mentioned in the policy of preservation, rehabilitation and extension of forests in Côte d'Ivoire, justified an organizational readjustment of the Ministry of Water and Forests as well as the formulation of a suitable budget. In addition, an execution strategy will complete the implementation framework.

I/ THE IRREVERSIBLE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PLANIFICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION TOOL
Decree No. 2018-36 of 17 January 2018, related to the organization of the Ministry of Water and forests was taken in order to tackle that necessity of preservation, rehabilitation and extension of forests in order to take into account the issues related to this main evolution. In addition, an inventory identified weaknesses to correct and induced a more efficient reorganization of the Ministry. The diagram below is an illustration of this.
The new architecture of the Administration of the Ministry of Water and Forests favors a coherent, functional, efficient framework conducive to rational and sustainable management of natural resources and their security, while ensuring the economy of the means and human resource.

Ministry of Waters and Forests
Overall, the innovations in the organizational framework focus basically on: 4. The strengthening of the communication service, which will take into account all issues related to education, raising awareness and promoting the activities of the ministry;

5.
Strengthening the documentation and archiving Sub-Directorate, guaranteeing the traceability of administrative action and judicious decision-making; 6. Creation of a Special Unit for Surveillance and Intervention in charge of prevent criminal activities affecting forests and other resources but especially to intervene promptly in case of offences; 7. Creation of Regional Directorates, departmental Directorates, additional logging and forestry post to ensure better mesh of the territory for a better execution of the national policy.
Decree N°2018-36 of 17 January 2018 related to the organisation of the Ministry of Waters and Forests, foundedon an integrated policy in sustainable management of water, forest, wildlife resources. Allows the implementation of a main recommendation from the forest, wildlife and water resources general assemblies forum (16 to 19 November 2015), namely the elevation of the management of these natural resources as a national priority.

II/ IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY AND BUDGET
The policy implementation will be supported by the development of a strategy which main strands are: -Improvement of forest governance; -Strengthening the protection of residual massif forests in classified forests and in the rural national forest; -Recovery of damaged forest areas in classified forest and in the rural domain; The implementation of this strategy is planned over 10 years and is suitable with the emergency program of the Strategic Development Plan of forest, wildlife and Water Resources sectors programmed for the period 2018-2045.
The budget for carrying out the actions and activities of the strategy that allows to operationalize protection, Renovation and Expansion of forests is estimated to 616 billion FCA.

CHAPTER III
The implementation of forests protection, renovation and expansion policy in Côte d'Ivoire is based on current and future achievements and initiatives. In addition, issues related to its good execution are genuine information of a road map that could contribute to its success. It must be remembered that these initiatives and achievements support the Implementation of this policy by confirming its relevance.

I/ THE GAINS
As achievements or efforts made or in progress, the Ministry of Water and forests has within a few months performed the following: • From a governance point of view, the revitalization of waters and forests general inspectorate results in more effective controls of the procedures related to forestry activity. A periodic evaluation of the Ministry's department activities is in progress. It helps to strengthen good governance within the ministerial department and contribute to effective implementation of national policy of forest protection, renovation and expansion • Concerning the normative aspect, it is important to emphasize that several texts are being formulated or finalized for imminent adoption notably, the revised forest code which will strengthen the legal framework; • Concerning the capacity building of the Ministry's departments in financial, human and material resources, it should be noted that efforts are achieved by the provision of additional resources, including means for intervention, notably on funds provided by the programming security law. • The desire to increase the awareness of the stakeholders in the woodland forest and populations on topics related to deforestation has been marked by the strengthening of the capacity of the communication services of the Ministry. This revitalization of the central pole in charge of promoting the new policy for the preservation, rehabilitation and extension of forests is a major step.

III/ THE STAKES
Any new policy takes into account the context but also anticipates the future by considering the factors that may affect positively or negatively its good implementation. So, the major challenges of this policy are the following : • The development of a citizen's awareness on the preservation of forests is a main challenge to take on, that relies on the execution of a communication and awareness strategy for the new preservation, rehabilitation and forest extension policy. This evolving of mindsets, will be achieved in particular by an awareness aroused by the concrete actions of the Ministry and their media coverage but also by educating the youngest children in primary school through a program dedicated to forest. An interdepartmental collaboration is needed; • Continued national ownership of forest issues remains a priority because the government has set the tone by endorsing the new policy in Presidential Council and adopting it in the Council of Ministers; • Strengthening of good governance in the forest sector is a significant challenge, which will have to produce more results in the coming months bring more outcomes with the upcoming introduction of the sector Governance Index. This index will be a compass in order to better reframe the actions of the Ministry and also to guarantee the implementation of the new policy in accordance with the standards in force. In this framework, Côte d'Ivoire will rely on principles and devices promoted and developed in FLEGT processes (application of forest regulations, governance and trade) and REDD+ (reducing emissions coming from deforestation and forests degradation) in which it is already committed; The introduction of the concept of «agroforestry» in the national policy aims not only at promoting the forest industry and agriculture in the forest on one hand but also to protect the forest heritage on the other hand. The combination of forestry and agriculture will strengthen the control of deforestation and will contribute to take care of cultures in forest; • The promotion of public and private partnerships like the cocoa-forest is a necessity to preserve the forests from "imported deforestation".
• The fight against forest crime is at the heart of this policy and has now a dedicated tool which is the Special Brigade for Surveillance and Intervention of the Ministry that will be equipped to secure forests but also to intervene in case of offences.

Initiative Cacao & Forêts
Ministry of Water and Forests "I am pessimistic by the intelligence and optimistic by will ˮ,here is a quotation of the philosopher Gramsci, that clearly shows the situation in which the forest is in Cote d'Ivoire. If we want to be purely rational, the rate of degradation of forest cover inspires pessimism, but the Ivorian government's willingness to face that situation demonstrates optimism. In fact, the new Policy of Preservation, Rehabilitation and Extension of Forests adopted by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday 23 May 2018, fully reflects the Government's ambition to face that forest degradation; a measured ambition because realistic and pragmatic, combining facts, strategies and foresight.
In addition, the Ministry of Water and Forests which is the backbone of this national policy continues its transformation, adapts and consolidates the achievements. Thus, an execution strategy of this policy will be formulated to describe the areas of intervention and an appropriate modus operandi to achieve the assigned objectives. The different departments of the ministry will have an «operational contract», appropriate military terminology which suits to Waters and Forests by their paramilitary character, aiming at changing policy into sectoral actions plans for a consolidated matrix of actions to be carried out.
Finally, the success of the National Policy for Preservation, Rehabilitation and Extension of forests is based on the effective application of the following requirements: -The need for a national inventory of forest and wildlife resources to have data; -The large-scale application of the agroforestry concept; -Access to new funds related to the environment and forests (green funds, carbon market, etc.); -The involvement of all the actors of the «forest and wood» field through an inclusive and participatory process.