A few meters from national road number 1, helped by four children, two men are busy unrolling a long pipe on the banks of the Koumongou River, which have been cleared and transformed into a watermelon field. We are in the heart of the Oti-Kéran National Park, 530 km north of Lomé, the capital of Togo. Until recently, cultivation was forbidden there.
The natural reserves of the continent often resemble each other in their history, the result of a policy of exclusion. From the colonial era onwards, entire areas were declared protected and access forbidden to local communities. This approach, maintained by the states after independence, was imposed without genuine consultation with the populations concerned, who ultimately derive almost no benefit from it. In the eyes of the expropriated residents, these protected areas are dedicated solely to the interests of the state and foreign tourists.
Today, in the context of widespread poverty and limited access to arable land, reserves are increasingly perceived not as ecological sanctuaries but as confiscated spaces. The pressure from local or displaced populations (particularly from Burkina Faso, where insecurity is forcing them to flee) is gradually encroaching on these areas. In Togo, after the Fosse aux Lions reserve in the Savannas region, it is the Oti-Kéran Park that is gradually disappearing.
Poaching, charring and agriculture
The second largest in the country, it was created in 1971 from a classified forest and covers the territories of the Kéran (Kara region) and Oti (Savannas region) prefectures. With an area of 6,700 hectares at its creation, it underwent a first extension in 1975-1976 and another in 1981-1982 to reach a total area of 179,550 hectares, of which 5,070 are hunting reserves. For the state, the aim was to protect ecosystems and their biological diversity. According to the website togo-tourisme.fr, one could admire “magnificent forests and numerous wild animals […], elephants […], buffaloes, lions, antelopes, monkeys and multiple birds”. The same site noted, however, the threat of “increasing poaching and encroachment on the forest reserve”.
The continuous expansion of the park’s boundaries led to widespread discontent among local populations. The socio-political unrest of the 1990s had repercussions on the management of protected areas. Taking advantage of this crisis, the populations who had been expelled during the expansion of the Oti-Kéran Park reappropriated their land, and the displaced villages gradually resettled. Poaching has decimated wildlife; charring and cultivation have degraded vegetation. Since then, the park’s area has continued to shrink. According to the Ministry of the Environment and Forest Resources, the area of the Oti-Kéran Park reached 69,000 hectares in 2022, following the illicit exploitation of resources and land restitutions by the state owners who requested them. Now, humans have gradually taken the place of animals, transforming this natural refuge into a territory of survival.
From Burkina Faso to the Togolese watermelon fields
Let’s go back to the watermelon field. The person who cultivates it is called Adama Malkouma. He is 45 years old and comes from Yoabiguin, in the central-eastern region of Burkina Faso. Forced into exile by jihadist attacks in his country, he left his village with his two wives and their ten children. After a brief stopover in the village of Timbou, in the Cinkassé prefecture, they finally found refuge in N’gambi, in South Oti, where they are trying to rebuild their lives.
Here, there used to be a forest. Today, the land returned by the state to its private owner in the 1990s, has been burned and then cleared. Adama recounts: “My landlord lent me 300,000 CFA francs [457 euros, editor’s note] to grow watermelons by the river. The money was used to buy seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and a motor pump. I will repay the loan after the harvest.” When asked if he is certain that his crop will bear fruit, he replies fatalistically: “Only God knows.”
Adama learned to grow watermelons last year by helping his brother, who has been living in the region for a few years. “At the end of the harvest, he paid me 125,000 CFA francs.” Based on this first experience, Adama decided to take the plunge. To accompany him, he can count on Bouraima Sawadogo, a man in his forties from the same village, married to three women and father of sixteen children. Bouraima testifies:
Here, landowners rent us a hectare for 25,000 francs. Last year, I was only granted a small plot to grow corn, and the harvest was a meagre for my family. So, I decided to come to Adama to learn how to grow watermelons.
But for these makeshift market gardeners, the challenges are numerous. Among them, the high cost of gasoline. In this area far from gas stations, contraband fuel has become scarce since its sale was banned as part of the fight against jihadist groups. “A liter is sold for 1,000 CFA francs. With 25 liters, we can run the motor pump for a week by watering the field every three days.”
“Our village was attacked, there were ten deaths”
While Adama and Bouraima are busy in their field, we leave the banks of the Koumongou to venture deep into the reserve. There, another facet of this migration to fertile land is emerging. These are no longer makeshift market gardeners but entire families who have come to seek refuge or land to cultivate. Among them are displaced people who have fled insecurity, but also Togolese people originally from Dapaong. In this remote corner, between precariousness and resilience, they are looking for a new life.
At the end of a dusty track that winds through the park, a clearing open onto a camp. A cart pulled by a slow-moving donkey advance laboriously, loaded with yellow jerrycans. Standing at the back, all joyful, a little girl in shorts stands upright between the jerrycans. In front, another girl, about ten years old, guides the cart whip in hand towards a row of round mud-brick huts covered with thatch and arranged in a semi-circle. The entrances are protected by woven mats. Only the head of the family’s hut has a sheet metal door. His name is Tchable Goumon, and he was the first occupant of the area after leaving his village, Waldjoague, located about 80 km further north.
On an apatam with a millet stalk roof, kitchen utensils dry in the sun. The head of the family says he settled there about ten years ago. Since then, some of his relatives have joined him, each building their hut in the middle of the fields. This is the case of Lardja Digbandja, who recently came from Pana to grow cotton and sesame.
A little further on is a solitary round hut. It houses Koumeto Diyoba and his wife, a couple from Burkina Faso. They left Diakarga, in Koulpélogo (on the border), eight months ago:
On February 4th, our village was attacked, and there were ten deaths and several injuries. The other family members took refuge in a Togolese village near the border. I can’t bring them here right now. I don’t have a room, and there’s no water to build a house. We only have one hut.
While today the Water and Forestry agents are a little more tolerant, the pioneers paid a heavy price, according to the testimonies gathered. With a discreet gesture, Djidame (pseudonym) points to a broken pot a few meters away, a vestige of the violence suffered in the early hours of settling in the park. The accounts corroborate with each other. Previously, it was impossible to settle here. The inhabitants only came to cultivate the land before leaving, because every attempt to settle was brutally repressed by the foresters: machetes and hoes confiscated, pots smashed, meals thrown on the ground, huts demolished without any consideration. Each time, the inhabitants rebuilt, refusing to give up.
“They were afraid that jihadists had infiltrated”
In November 2015, after violent demonstrations by populations hostile to the rehabilitation of Togo’s protected areas, which resulted in five deaths in Mango, the capital of the Oti prefecture, President Faure Gnassingbé decided to suspend the project. Since then, the pressure has eased, but the ban remains a source of deep concern for the populations settled in the park. Some newcomers continue to be worried and fear an intervention by the authorities at any moment.
Under the cover of anonymity, a Burkinabe refugee agreed to testify. Aged 32 and married to four women, he fled the Sangha province in August 2024 to settle here. He built a makeshift shelter with tarpaulins. One day, while he had returned to his village to fetch the rest of his belongings, his family received a visit from the Water and Forestry agents. “They found the women and asked for me. They said I had returned to Burkina. They took my motorbike.” Upon his return, he had to go through numerous procedures and give an envelope to recover his property. With hindsight, he puts the situation into perspective: “They are just doing their job. I think they were afraid that jihadists had infiltrated among the refugees, and that’s what motivated their reaction. In the end, everything went well when they realized I had nothing suspicious.”
According to the report on the statistics of the general census of displaced persons in Togo published in March 2024 by the Emergency and Resilience and Community Security Reinforcement Program, the South Oti prefecture (which houses the largest part of the park) hosts nearly a thousand displaced persons, mostly from Burkina Faso. Some told us that they had been registered and had obtained their refugee card, but they have not, for the moment, received any assistance, neither from the National Coordination for Refugee Assistance (NCRA) nor from international humanitarian organizations. The displaced people of N’gambi (South Oti), on the other hand, regularly receive humanitarian assistance (food, seeds, inputs, etc.).
“Sometimes, I go weeks without washing”
Settling and staying in the reserve despite the pressure from the authorities is only the first step in a long struggle. “In case of a health problem, you have to travel more than 15 km to reach Péssidè or N’gambi, the two nearest localities that have a medical center,” testifies a resident. A distance that can prove insurmountable.
Due to the lack of a school in the reserve, some parents send their children for the school year to relatives in N’gambi. But this situation is not ideal, confides Kiyiéssoua, in her forties and mother of six children: “The youngest are left unsupervised. And when they are hosted by family members, they are given chores while their guardian’s children revise their lessons. Under these conditions, success is impossible.” Renting a house for the children protects them from mistreatment but exposes them to other risks, particularly adolescent girls. Adamou, Kiyiéssoua’s husband, confides, bitterly: “I had sent her with her younger brothers to N’gambi. I enrolled her in a sewing course and her younger brothers in school. As the eldest, she was supposed to watch over them, but in less than two years, she became pregnant,” he says, his face closed, pointing to a young woman breastfeeding a baby on an old tire.
The lack of drinking water also complicates daily life. Throughout the reserve, the only source of supply is the river, about ten kilometers away. But the muddy and slippery bank, especially during the rainy season, has caused several accidents. Issaka Combate, 76, says: “Sometimes I go weeks without washing. I can’t go get water: the bank is too high. Four years ago, I fell while going back up the bank with a full jerrycan. I fractured my shoulder blade.” The man in his sixties now goes from house to house begging for water with a jerrycan.
Participatory management of the Park ?
To transport water, women use carts pulled by donkeys. On each trip, they bring back several yellow jerrycans or, sometimes, an entire barrel. Despite this, they cannot make more than two trips a day due to the arduousness of the task, the distance, and the slowness of the animals. In the afternoon, access becomes even more complicated when herds of cattle invade the river.
Faced with this situation, some inhabitants dig holes near their homes during the rainy season to collect water for domestic needs. But in this area without latrines, the risks of contamination of this water are significant. Added to this is the massive use of pesticides that replace hoes: instead of weeding, farmers burn the weeds with herbicides, thus aggravating the pollution of the few available water sources.
Aware of the park’s degradation, the government has not abandoned the idea of restoring it. In February 2022, on the sidelines of a Council of Ministers held in Pya, the native village of the President of the Republic, 400 km north of Lomé, Katari Foli-Bazi, the Minister of the Environment and Forest Resources, declared that the executive was studying the possibility of defining a framework for consultation with a view to participatory management of the park. Will the settled families benefit from this plan? In the meantime, they are trying to survive and are inventing their own future.
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