Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration or FMNR, was developed by Australian agronomist Tony Rinaudo in the Sahel region of West Africa. It is a system where farmers protect and allow existing trees which have been browsed to a stump, to regrow, and be pruned and trained, to achieve amazing results, for little effort, compared to planting trees. In my view, it is a simple but brilliant solution.
Tony Rinaudo has been honoured with the 2025 Luxembourg Peace Prize for Outstanding Environmental Peace. Congratulations and well deserved!
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Before and after photos
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FMNR could also be combined with the Supplemented Fodder Treatment (SFT) and Holistic Planned Grazing (HPG), and the combination of these has the potential to stop the encroachment of deserts, and begin to revegetate deserts, or at least semi-arid areas.
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The illustration below about natural plant succession shows how nature can heal itself. The above techniques can help this natural process. More importantly, there is the possibility of advancing succession to beyond what is typical for a given soil and climate, in other words, to a wetter and more vegetated ecosystem than is normal for the region and climate.
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More on the Sahel
Australian acacias have been used in the Sahel to great advantage.
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Reforestation.me 