News

From September 24th to 25th, fifteen traditional hunters from the communes of Allassoyah, in the Kindia region of Guinea, met for a dialogue forum organized as part of the project for responsible hunting management (DONZO GNOUMA), implemented by Coginta. This was the first in a series of dialogue forums to be held in the coming months.

The aim of these dialogue spaces is to allow hunters to share their experiences, practices, and knowledge of the territory, in order to gradually develop joint hunting plans that can then be discussed with local authorities and communities. These meetings also provide an opportunity to openly discuss the challenges their activity currently faces, in a context of rapid urbanization and significant population growth.

Hunting practices confronted with an evolving/changing environment

Guinea is undergoing rapid economic and social transformation. While this dynamic creates new opportunities for growth and development, it also leads to increasing pressure on natural resources and ecosystems, particularly wildlife, especially around mining areas.

With the growth of urban areas and human activity, the intensification of hunting and the bushmeat trade is placing increasing pressure on wildlife, threatening not only local biodiversity but also communities, which are more exposed to zoonoses—infectious diseases transmissible from animals to humans. These challenges, directly impacting people's livelihoods, underscore the importance of strengthening sustainable wildlife management, anticipating impacts on biodiversity, and preventing zoonotic risks.

Building solutions based on local knowledge and practices

In this context, a better understanding of hunting practices and existing governance mechanisms at the local level is particularly important in order to establish better-regulated hunting. Collective and participatory discussions have therefore focused on several sensitive topics, including the future of traditional hunting, wildlife conservation, and the health issues related to bushmeat.

The DONZO GNOUMA project (“good hunter” in Malinke) aims not simply to raise hunters’ awareness of best practices, but rather, based on their knowledge, practices, and local governance mechanisms, to develop tailored solutions with them and then facilitate dialogue with communities and local authorities. The project is thus part of a virtuous cycle that seeks to reconcile economic development and environmental preservation, while supporting appropriate responses to the impacts of current and future transformations.