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THE WOCATEER (No. 11 - Autumn/Winter 2005)
(WOCAT Newsletter)

The WOCAT Newsletter is distributed by Email to those who are subscribed to the WOCAT-L mailing list (or as hard copy to those without Email).
It is distributed only in English for the time being, but Websites like http://babelfish.altavista.com/ or http://www.google.com/ language_tools offer fairly good translation facilities. The result is not perfect but quite understandable.

Le bulletin de WOCAT est distribué seulement en anglais pour l'instant, mais des sites Internet tels que http://babelfish.altavista.com ou http://www.google.com/language_tools offrent des moyens de le traduire qui sont assez utile. Le résultat n'est pas parfait, mais plus ou moins compréhensible.

Por el momento el noticiario de WOCAT existe solamente en inglés, pero algunos sitios web como http://babelfish.altavista.com o http://www.google.com/language_tools. ofrecen buenas/aceptables facilidades de traducción. El resultado no es perfecto pero se puede comprender.

10th WOCAT Annual Workshop & Steering Meeting
5-10 September 2005, Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro

The 10th Annual WOCAT Workshop & Steering Meeting (WWSM) was organized by the Faculty of Forestry of the University of Belgrade (Dept. of Erosion and Torrent Control) and was attended by 30 participants from 16 different countries. Six participants (from Nigeria, Niger and ICRAF) had to cancel their participation at the last moment due to visa or flight problems. After welcome words by various officials, a.o. the Dep. Minister for Science & Environment Protection, the meeting started with global, regional and national progress reports. At the global level a number of activities was noted, in particular the work on the global overview book ("Where the land is greener"), which will be published by mid 2006 (see pre-order form below). This will be a major PR object for WOCAT and will need to be launched with good publicity. The work on the book has resulted in several spin-offs and lessons learned that are relevant for the quality assurance of the information to be collected through WOCAT as well as for the method to collect it. Another major activity was the "re-launch" of the mapping methodology, through a major revision of the map viewer and underlying software, as agreed during the previous WWSM in China. The S. African team has played a pivotal role in the progress achieved and later showed a prototype of the World Map and the QM viewer (both on- and off-line).

Another Task Force (TF) that had been quite active was the "WOCAT in Research and Education" TF. A survey form on the use of WOCAT in research and/or education had been prepared and distributed through WOCAT-L. Unfortunately this yielded only 15 reactions (out of ± 450 Email addresses and a few personalised reminders). All readers are herewith encouraged to fill in the form if they haven't done so yet (so except 15). Once more contributions have been received the results will be published through WOCAT-L and on the WOCAT Website.

Statistics on the WOCAT Website showed an increasing number of visitors, from 86.317 pages in 2003 to 188.000 in 2005 (July). Most visited pages on the Website - beside the home page - are the World Map (!), Database, Introduction, latest Newsletter and Questionnaires.

Presentations of progress at national and regional levels illustrated a high level of activities during the past year, e.g. for Bangladesh, S. Africa, Ethiopia, China, Serbia & Montenegro, ICIMOD, or a continuation at a lower level for some others, while some new initiatives were also presented (India-Orissa; Indonesia). The progress report session was concluded with discussions in regional groups to review problems encountered and solutions applied.

On Sept. 6 prototypes of the new mapping system were demonstrated. This consist of two distinct parts: a) the World Map method with as objective to create a global point map showing location, type etc. of "interesting" SWC cases and b) "QM" to create local/national or regional polygon maps showing type, spatial extent and effectiveness of SWC. The new system(s) will be ARC-IMS based, allowing much more flexibility and GIS capabilities (e.g. adding other data layers) than the old MS-Access/Map Object light - based version. The new system should also have less (no?) bugs. It is assumed that this was one of the major obstacles to a more widespread use of the map methodology till now and that a more attractive product will inspire more people to use it. Strategies on how to promote this were discussed in one group, e.g. through more specific training, while others tested the prototypes.

Dirk Pretorius explaining the new mapping software (Photo Hanspeter Liniger)

Field trip
Beginning late Tuesday afternoon till Wednesday evening a field trip was made top the southern part of the country where a few sites with SWC measures were visited and local products "tested". Thursday 8 September started with "Quality assurance". The experiences from various countries and lessons learned with the Overview book were presented and discussed. In the afternoon the topic WOCAT in Research & Education was addressed in more detail, with various presentations on experiences made and discussions on how to continue. It was decided that - depending on the purpose - it is better to start documentation with the "Basic" rather than the "Professional" (full) version so as not to put off people right from the start by the size of the questionnaire. Furthermore a review panel needs to be organized to ensure data quality. People very familiar with certain technologies and approaches may overlook the obvious, so it is also valuable involve an interested non-specialist. Review panels can be established at national or regional levels, or as a team of external reviewers. Quality assurance is time consuming and needs motivated people and incentives, like a training in quality control for peer reviewers who can then give quality labels to case studies, and opportunities to publish 'labelled' case studies in an overview book or in journals.

Musical welcome at Predejane (field trip) and workshop host Miodrag Zlatic giving explanations in the field near Leskovac (Photos Hanspeter Liniger)

On Friday 9 Sept. some participants were given the chance to give a "special presentation" on WOCAT -related issues in their country or region, e.g. Ethiopia, China, HKH region (ICIMOD), Bangladesh, India-Orissa. This was followed by group work on future strategies, in part. on "feedback and dissemination", International Year of Deserts and Desertification 2006, Questionnaire revision, Mapping follow-up and WOCAT business plan.

The last day of the meeting was spent on plans and strategies for the coming year(s), including a slightly revised vision and mission statement:

WOCAT's vision is that local knowledge on sustainable land management is shared and used globally to improve livelihoods and the environment.

WOCAT's mission is to support decision making and innovation in sustainable land management by:
- connecting stakeholders,
- enhancing capacity, and
- developing and applying standardized tools for
- documenting, monitoring, evaluating, sharing and using knowledge in soil and water conservation
WOCAT mainly addresses SWC specialists, planners and decision makers at the field (farmers, extension workers) and at the planning level.

Major objectives at the global level were identified with a high priority being allocated to issues like the global overview book, a light questionnaire version, world map developments, guidelines for reviewers, WOCAT labels. Task Force plans were also prepared and a revised task distribution within the Management Group (MG) and the Secretariat was agreed upon. The Core MG remained unchanged (CDE, ISRIC, FAO) but some changes took place in the "Enlarged MG". The importance of proper feedback and communication, both internally and externally was emphasised once more.

Hans Hurni (the "founder" of WOCAT) attended the meeting for the last 1½ days and gave a speech depicting the development of WOCAT in past thirteen years and the outlook for the future. He stated that WOCAT has been quite successful, but he warned that a certain fatigue might develop among donors (and the target groups) if WOCAT is not changing its focus and being seen as doing the same throughout. Linkages to crucial global issues like climate change, water, biodiversity as well as the MDGs such as poverty alleviation should be developed or enhanced and WOCAT should also be able to support the claimed benefits of SWC (in the documented case studies) with research to provide hard evidence for them.

For the organisation of the next WWSM there were offers from Tajikistan and from South Africa. For various reasons the participants agreed to accept the offer from S. Africa. The meeting will be held in Cape Town from 23-28 October 2006 and will cover issues like spatial aspects of sustainable land management; International Year of Deserts and Desertification 2006 (IYDD); new tools (questionnaires revised, light version, etc.), special inputs (documented Ts, As, spatial info), and of course a field trip (involving farmers who use WOCAT). The WWSM should be used more as a platform to share information and WOCAT outputs, and to show the WOCAT achievements of the host country including special presentations and a field visit to documented and mapped technologies and approaches.

The full Proceedings of the 10th WWSM (incl. global, regional and national progress reports) are now available on the WOCAT Website.

3rd World Congress on Conservation Agriculture
4-8 October, Nairobi, Kenya

The third World Congress on Conservation Agriculture was organized by the African Conservation Tillage network (ACT), the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture and the Kenya Conservation Tillage Initiative (KCTI) in association with New Partnership for Africa 's Development (NEPAD). The congress was attended by ± 600 participants from some 60 countries worldwide, albeit with a focus on Africa. The composition of the participants was very diverse: from farmers to ministers, private sector, NGO's, and of course researchers. The Zambian minister of Agriculture made a strong plea for CA in a passionate speech.

Besides formal paper presentations the conference provided ample opportunity for discussions in smaller working groups on diverse issues. The quality of the formal presentations was generally good and showed that conservation agriculture is gaining appreciation quite rapidly. Its interpretation varied from pure zero-tillage to a broader range of conservation principles, the more important being maintenance of soil cover and minimal disturbance of the soil. A special WOCAT session on Thursday afternoon was regrettably not extensively visited (± 25 participants). Additional resources had been provided by SDC for this special session and for a technical mini-workshop in collaboration with the Global Water Partnership Associated Programme of RELMA on the impacts of Conservation Agriculture on water use, soil quality and production (a.o. paper presented by Lewis Njeru).

The booths section was well organized and attractive and the WOCAT booth was strategically located near one of the main meetings halls exits.

Various mid-conference field trips were offered to Nakuru, Machakos and Laikipia. Travel distance and traffic congestion made some of these more into a bus trip than a field trip but the Kenyan landscape fortunately even offers a lot to see from that perspective.

WOCAT training for IRHA / SEARNET group
10-15 October, Nanyuki, Kenya

A WOCAT training was organized for a group from the International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA), together with some participants from the Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network (SEARNET). The training took place from 10-16 October in and around Nanyuki, near Mount Kenya. Some 25 participants from various African countries and from India, plus two Colombian participants from IRHA secretariat in Geneva attended the training. Hanspeter Liniger and Godert van Lynden acted as resource persons. One objective of the workshop was to test the applicability of the WOCAT tools for rainwater harvesting purposes.

Monday's first session enabled the participants to present themselves & express their expectations for the workshop. The next days were spent in the field with the participants split into two groups. Five sites were visited in total with each group documenting technologies and approaches for three sites. These varied from small scale holder agriculture in the Meru drylands north of Mt. Kenya to intensive large scale conservation agriculture on somewhat less dry environments W. of Mt. Kenya. On Friday the groups added their completed questionnaires to the WOCAT database, some groups working on their computers until as late as 10pm.

Conservation Agriculture (direct drill) in freshly burned straw on a large-scale farm (Photo Godert van Lynden)

On Saturday it was time to draw some conclusions. Perhaps the most important one was that the WOCAT questionnaires should be adapted to better take into account the RWH aspects of projects. Lastly, the participants declared that their expectations had been met by the workshop and that it should be replicated in many other regions.

The workshop was hosted by CETRAD (Centre for Training & Integrated Research in Arid & Semi-arid Lands Development), based in Nanyuki. The main funding for this project came from Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC), but co-sponsoring was also by the given by SEARNET, the United Nations Human Habitations Programme, FAO, Watershed Organisation Trust of India & the Volta Basin Development Foundation of Ghana and WOCAT.

(NB: with thanks to, and slightly modified from the IRHA Newsletter no. 12 - November 2005)

WOCAT IN THE PHILIPPINES (PHILCAT)
By Jose D. Rondal

After a WOCAT presentation made by Dr. Jose D. Rondal during the 7th National Multi-Sectoral Forum on Watershed Management on May 4-5, 2005 in Quezon City, PHILCAT was invited to make similar presentation in two Regional Fora. The first regional presentation was made during the 1st Mindanao Multi-Sectoral Forum on Watershed Management on September 1-2, 2005 in Davao City, Mindanao. Conflicting development agendas make it imperative to formulate and implement plans based on the capability of island's existing resources. The second presentation was made during the 1st Visayas Multi-Sectoral Forum on Watershed Governance held on Nov. 21-22, 2005 in Cebu City with German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) as the major sponsor. The Visayas is composed of island provinces which are in various stages of development with corresponding land degradation problems. The island of Cebu is one of the identified provinces with serious land degradation problem. Cebu City which is the second biggest city in the Philippines has serious problem of water scarcity and intrusion of salt water in its aquifer.

In both fora, technology options for watershed management were presented using the WOCAT data base. Participants (about 70 each) requested copies of the WOCAT presentation material and of the CD-ROM.

Technology documentation is another ongoing activity. Currently, the technology "Windbreak", used by farmers in Batanes, a wind-swept group of islands in the northern most part of the Philippines is being documented. To protect crops from being damaged by wind, grass, shrub or tree hedgerows are planted along farm boundaries. These also help control soil erosion for the farms on sloping land. Another technology being documented is a still un-named technology discovered by the commercial banana plantations in Mindanao. It is about the retaining of the banana trunk after harvesting the fruit. Previously, the trunk was cut at the base and removed from the site. By leaving the trunk standing, it has been claimed that bananas performed better especially during the occurrence of drought (El Niño) probably because of the water and nutrient contained in it.

On the other uses of WOCAT, the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) in collaboration with the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and the Philippine Council on Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) is developing a training module on Sloping Land Management (SLM). The WOCAT information is very helpful in the development of the module, particularly on the technology options.

The WOCAT inter-agency committee (PHILCAT) is being reconstituted in order to better perform its mandate. Some of the original members of the committee are involved in activities not related to soil and water conservation. The reconstitution is expected to be done during the next two months.

IAEA - WOCAT training workshop 23-25 November 2005 in Istanbul, Turkey
By Gudrun Schwilch, CDE

The workshop was organized by the Istanbul Technical University, Institute of Energy, and supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Coordinated Research Project ("Assessing the effecttiveness of soil conservation techniques for sustainable watershed management using fallout radionuclides"). The project emphasizes the need for proper documentation, monitoring and evaluation of SWC technologies and approaches using the WOCAT tools. The 3-days training was accomplished with around 10 participants from various university and government institutes. The 1st day (with a few more participants) focused on introductions to WOCAT and to the WOCAT methodology. The 2nd day was spent in the field, looking at degradation problems in the area and at conservation measures, trying to document them with the WOCAT questionnaires. Two lively village meetings were held, discussing degradation and conservation issues around Omerli dam, where protection areas cause conflicts with villagers. The Omerli reservoir is the most important water source for the city of Istanbul. The field day showed the high degradation problems in the area, illustrated also by the rainfall during the day. Cultivation land with few vegetation at this time of the year (rainy season!) and up-and-down the slope tillage, overgrazing and wood cutting in brush and forest land, conflicting protection zones around Omerli reservoir, heavy urbanization with illegal constructions of whole city parts, etc.

Working on the WOCAT questionnaires with villagers and reforestation of a protection zone above a cultivated field with high rill erosion. Pasakoy, Turkey. (Photos by Gudrun Schwilch)

On the 3rd day we concentrated on training on tools like database and assessment criteria and developing workplans to use WOCAT in the local programmes. The established work plan includes the creation of a TURCAT team, the documentation of local SWC Technologies and Approaches, the translation of WOCAT questionnaires into Turkish and the expansion of the current team beyond University level.

Creation of Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD)-Clubs as WOCAT Partners in the North-West-Province (NWP) of Cameroon.
By Fabienne Thomas, University of Fribourg, Switzerland (1)

On World Food Day (16 October) 2004, the Presbyterian Rural Training Center (PRTC) in Fonta, NWP, had organized an event for farmers, farmer groups, several technical agronomists as well as members of the Provincial Ministry of ARD. During this meeting Vincent Tekum, Coordinator and Director of PAFSAT (Promotion of Adapted Farming Systems based on Animal Traction) showed interest in the on-going studies on the use of Tithonia diversifolia as green manure, and so he came for a visit to the Center again. As the use of Tithonia as green manure was not commonly known yet, he confirmed that there was a lack of information exchange among agricultural experts and extension staff. As coordinator of PAFSAT, Vincent is concerned with a series of problems in the field of natural resource management, especially with soil erosion and rapidly declining soil fertility. There are several rural training centers and agricultural schools in the NWP providing good educational work and extension services. But communication and transfer of relevant information is still relatively poor.

Fabienne Thomas presenting WOCAT to PAFSAT people, Bamenda, Cameroon (Photo by Fabienne Thomas)

Therefore, Vincent was very interested in the idea of WOCAT and in how it is working, as information about soil and water conservation technologies like the use of Tithonia should be made available and spread effectively. He organized an event at PAFSAT, where besides a presentation of the studies on Tithonia as green manure, an introduction into WOCAT's objectives and methodologies was given. A number of agricultural experts of different ministries concerned with natural resource management as well as leaders of agricultural schools and farmers attended the presentation and showed their interest in participating in an initiative enhancing information management on SWC technologies and approaches. Vincent Tekum accepted to contact relevant institutions and to work out a proposal on how this information exchange could be organized including the WOCAT methodology and network. He proposed the building of ARD - Clubs to provide a free form of organization that is open to a wide target group. His proposal was now handed over to the WOCAT secretariat, which will provide further support and backstopping to the use of WOCAT within the ARD - Clubs.

(1) Fabienne Thomas is a student of the Institute of Geography, University of Fribourg. She visited Cameroon for her master thesis on agro-ecological innovations, looking at the example of Tithonia diversifolia (Mexican Sunflower) to sustainably improve food security.

WOCAT Overview Book: "Where The Land Is Greener"

'Where the land is greener' looks at soil and water conservation from a global perspective. This well illustrated and attractive book is the first hard-copy global compilation of case studies by WOCAT. Over 40 technologies are described - each with photographs, graphics and line drawings - from more than 20 countries around the world. There are some well established successes but many little known 'islands of promise' as well. Various land use categories are covered and the technologies cover a wide range from terraces to agroforestry systems, from rangeland rehabilitation to conservation agriculture, from vermiculture to water harvesting. The technologies are supported by matching studies of the 'approaches' that supported their development and spread. Some of these are descriptions of projects, but several are fascinating explanations of how spontaneous development has occurred. The book does not stop with case studies: there are two main analytical sections taking the technologies and approaches in turn in search for the common elements of success. Finally there are policy pointers for decision makers and donors - who are challenged now to invest in making the land greener.

Profit from a discount when ordered before end of February 2006
15 Euro plus airmail/shipment instead of 25 Euro plus airmail/shipment
Payment options and details will be communicated later

Interested? Then please complete this form!