There are no suitable alternatives to replace livelihood and income bound to extractive forest behaviour for timber and firewood charcoal supply. The only source for securing livelihoods in the country is subsistence farming and extraction from the forest reserves, not only because of poverty but also because of the lack of sustainability regulations adapted to the reality of this population. Moreover, the increase of areas allocated to the settlements revealed basic subsistence needs as the main drivers of the natural resources utilization, but also the need to build houses for this growing population. The built infrastructure and private settlements are consuming space for many other causes.The selected protected areas reported the presence/absence of plants/animals and the survey of the management agent’s : In the Oti-Keran reserve, 80% of these local respondents agreed to the protected area regulatory structure, while many farmers continue to grow crops and graze domestic animals inside the PA. Some villagers recognized that several animal populations disappeared from protected areas because of human pressure through uncontrolled hunting. Animals like buffaloes, antelopes, lions, and elephants are no longer extant in the area, as historical populations have diminished. Forest species such as Vitelleria paradoxa, Anogeissus, Terminalia lactiflora are present while Khaya, Pterocarpus, Accacia albiob, Deterium microcarpum, Gardenia termifolium disappeared from the area. Farmers have argued that some factors, such as bush fires and tree logging, have been contributing to climate change, and seasons come late or earlier between years. At the time the survey was conducted, no effective structure or proactive management system existed. The past reductionist view management approach of PA from the policymakers has resulted in conflicts and distrust arising from the local population. In the protected area of Togodo North, there is a high richness of plant and animal diversity. Tree species such as Ciba pentandra, Milicia excelsa, Pterocarpus, Afzelia africana, Diospyros mespiloformis are present in the PA. Many young people feel disenfranchised from the management of this diverse and species-rich area. In the Abdoulaye faunal reserve, villagers reported various issues with local wildlife. Many animals destroy crops, such as foxes, baboons. African elephants, which were very abundant in the past, are no longer extant. Farms continue to expand at the expense of the reserve area, causing a lack of appropriate wildlife habitat and subsequent movement over the boundaries to the Benin Republic.
The forest resources found are mainly Pterocarpus and Anogeissus. Resource use comprises firewood, charcoal, and timber. Many honey producers recognized a decrease in the honey harvest, which is an important activity that benefits the local populations of the reserve. Effective implementation of sustainable management plans of this rich and useful area for animal biodiversity conservation and the surrounding populations’ needs would be of great importance. The contradiction between terrestrial protected areas increasing and the savannahs and forests decreasing demonstrates the challenge of strategizing the protected areas. The conception of management regulations for protected areas is very important,vertical farming racks but not sufficient without PA models suitable for each area. Indeed, results Oti-Keran National Park in the north showed that there were anthropogenic settlements in the PA coupled to farming activities and hunting, and these observations also exist in the south part of the country in Abdoulaye fauna reserve and Togodo national reserve.At the national level, trends in driving factors showed that while terrestrial protected areas are increasing, forest and savannah land covers are decreasing alarmingly. This contrast showed that the implementation of a protected area strategy encounters some difficulties especially in the management process and system. The Togolese government’s efforts to protect biodiversity showed remarkable growth and multiplication of protected areas in Togo since 2000 with positive trends in the equation reflecting this parameter increase. However, these efforts have not prevented certain protected areas from being subjected to strong socio-economic pressure. Indeed, it has been insufficient to focus solely on avoiding biodiversity losses as the protected area strategy, where proactive measures are necessary to confront the needs of the local population and their vulnerability. Therefore, faced with the degradation of plant and animal biodiversity and compounding environmental problems, protected areas appear as an all-terrain solution adopted by several countries. Their effectiveness is not the same everywhere as previously implemented. This analysis has shown that despite the status of classified areas, the protected areas suffer the same degradation as all other forests due to uncontrolled tree logging for timber production by the surrounding local population. If the status of the PA cannot preserve the environment from degradation, then effective interventions can confront any local population misunderstandings about the purpose of the protected area and also address improvements to the management plan that reduce the protected area into the core area only. A reductionist view of protected areas should be replaced by a model which will reduce conflicts between man and nature. Protected areas can aim to provide all the needs of the human population while maintaining diverse species richness if the Viable Strategy Approach is implemented .
A protected area would be effectively benefiting both the officials and the local population if the PA satisfies the triple basic needs of sustainable management, including social, economic and environmental, in such a way that the resources remain available from generation to generation through sustainable use. For example, since the local economy bases sales and income from agriculture and the wood products, then if these were extracted primarily from protected areas, this situation would be normal and non-antagonist. If protected areas divided into areas able to satisfy agricultural and other anthropogenic needs and managed on a systembased approach, then it would bring integrated activities such as education, monitoring, research and any human settlements in a useful circle . These findings were not consistent with the work of on the OTA which found that agricultural activities were the main drivers of forest ecosystem degradation around a protected area. This research shows that agriculture was not planned to take place in the buffer zone, and was absent from the management plan that had conceptually opposed agriculture encroaching the protected area. In previous research, in the OTA national parks, many think that tree logging and hunting are illegal activities without proving the legitimacy of these activities, which helped those populations to survive from generation to generation. Thus, the zonation of the PA attempt to mitigate the challenge of local populations’ opinion of a PA as restricted or otherwise hostile to man’s freedom to benefit nature’s services freely. In these villages surrounding a protected area, the population depends on farming and forest resource use. No other professional activities nor governmental financial support or subsidies in the form of economic incentives are available to the local population to mitigate these problems. These findings are also consistent with the results found by previously in the Rumpi Hill in Cameroon. Social factors and lack of structured government programs seriously impact the natural resources despite the effective implementation of a protected areas strategy. These examples testify for the need to redefine the “notion” of a protected area , which should not be perceived as a “forbidden area” ruled strongly as a gold mine. The PA should be able to be divided and managed synergistically to benefit both local populations and as non-local people, such as academic workers, tourists and officials, based on the principle of sustainable use and renewal of the zoned PA. Indeed, sustainable development stands in the background of the present generation to meet basic needs without forgetting the future generation.As long as the present generation’s basic needs are in jeopardy, then it is impossible to think of future sustainability.
Moreover, for in 1998, the “triple bottom line principle” of sustainability requires three pillars; economic , social and environmental to sustain any PA’s aim to be a model of sustainability. Many researchers think that local government policies are inefficient in classified forest management for African regions, especially West Africa. Policies lack economic facilities to put regulations into action that would alternatively stimulate the economy in the region, and consequently, vertical rack system these protected areas management policies lack cooperation with the local population. Unaddressed social needs become the drivers that negatively impact vegetation coverage and the biodiversity in and around a protected area. The biggest challenge of PA resource management is not only the absence of concrete regulations to account for the basic needs of the surrounding population but their understanding and total participation in the protected area management process . Henceforth, the community management strategy can be developed in these protected areas to find a suitable period to enjoy the resources wisely and to renew them for the achievement of sustainable management principles. In many protected areas, researchers have shown that the management rules and enforcement are nearly absent, thus inadvertently permitting the uncontrolled access of the surrounding populations to natural resources, especially forests or faunas. In Togo, for example, Law No. 2008-009 of June 2008 provides for provisions concerning the forest regime, testifying to the desire of the Togolese government to involve, at all stages, local governments in the process of setting up and managing sustainable-use forest and animal resources . Thus, despite the insufficiency of the efforts of the Togolese local authorities to preserve the ecosystems for the well-being of the current and future generations, these efforts are promoted and encouraged by the national government. It is therefore imperative to be part of the logic of multi-scale sustainable development principles, the most basic of which involve participatory or community management to take into account the different socio-economic and environmental needs of the local area and the mutual sharing of the services provided by the PA. The principles established within a protected area are derived from the specific goals and reasons for implementation. Setting limits to avoid using any resources has been a popular strategy in many countries and areas, and serves as a method to perpetuate the existence of natural resources. Natural resources should be available not only for the present generation but also for the future ones; therefore, this is the foundation of sustainable management. The reason why an area establishes boundaries was originally only for plants, animals, or biodiversity purposes. As this goal is facing real challenges related to the supply of ecosystem services to supply basic human needs, then policymakers realized that this paradigm of focusing only on biodiversity preservation was not effective. Thus, the concept of protecting nature and profiting wisely from it becomes unavoidable for a balanced supply of ecosystem services and also for biodiversity preservation. This equilibrium becomes the solution for the survival of the protected area and is based on the background of sustainable principles.
PA should reconcile man with nature through new viable management approaches based on the zonation of these protected areas, as suggested by UNESCO. These models are consistent with those used by in tropical forests. The Biosphere and Man concept includes the principle of integrated protected areas that are managed sustainably without contradiction or exclusion of human settlements and accompanying activities such as education, monitoring, research, and tourism in the limits of the PA. Those who reject ideology for the inclusion of protected areas towards progressive openness to the public will continue to face challenges and conflicts between natural resources conservation and fundamental anthropogenic land cover change and disturbances. The protected area does not belong only to the local people living locally, as it is a model of sustainable development that seeks to harmonize biodiversity conservation and anthropogenic needs. Alignment with sustainable development is a long process with many uncertainties, although, when managed with the wisdom of sustainability clearly defined, then it becomes understandable and accepted by all the actors involved in the management from the beginning to the end. Moreover, many previous studies on the topic of PA in Togo pointed out that anthropogenic pressure due to socio-economic and political troubles consequences as serious drivers of PA resources degradation. Therefore, monitoring unavoidable activities such as agriculture to be predicted and previewed for integration into the management process by dividing the PA into different areas that supply several services for a peaceful and symbiotic relationship between PAs and residents.