It has been reported that the priming of cotton seeds decreased mean germination and emergence time, thereby playing a key role in improving the measured parameters of the seedlings in laboratorial conditions and of the greenhouse-grown plants . Indeed, priming shortened this phase of plant life, helping them to exploit the environmental resources for the growth and salinity adaptation more quickly. Also in unstressed conditions, seed hydropriming can be a good strategy to improve initial growth of the cotton plants due to its inexpensiveness and availability in different conditions. However, in case of the salinity stress, priming with the appropriate dosages of potassium nitrate can be a suitable method to make the cotton plants cv. “Sahel” and the resulting seedlings stress resistant. The salinity induced loss of plant growth may be caused by the disruption of the uptake of the nutrients, disturbance of ion balance or the loss of water potential in soil and osmotic stress, or may be caused by the variation of the availability of the enzymes effective on photosynthesizing system. Stem and root length are the main parameters to monitor the impact of environmental stresses, especially salinity and drought because root is in a direct contact with soil absorbing water and minerals and stem mobilizes them towards other parts. Therefore, the longitudinal variations of these two parameters signal the plant responses to drought stress . The desirable impact of seed priming on germination percentage and rate has been reported by many studies. For example, Demir Kaya et al. observed higher germination percentage and rate in sunflower seeds primed with potassium nitrate under salinity stress . Farooqh et al. related germination improvement of two rice cultivars to priming with potassium chloride and calcium chloride . Germination rate has been reported to be improved by hydropriming in plants like corn and cotton . Some researchers suggest that higher water uptake in the primed seeds vs. unprimed seeds positively affected germination percentage and rate . Some studies have revealed the improvement of radicle and plumule length in primed seeds. It has been shown that seed priming with potassium nitrate increased radicle and plumule length of seedlings grown from the seeds of different plants under salinity conditions .
Kattimani et al. reported higher seed vigor due to priming with nitrate solutions and Artola et al. noted the favorable impact of hydropriming on the seed vigor of Melilotus officinalis . Soleimani et al. concluded that salinity reduced germination percentage and rate, plumule and radicle length, seedling fresh weight, and seed vigor . The species did not show similar responses to different pre-treatments, so that priming of Nigella sativa with potassium nitrate, distilled water, and potassium chloride improved germination and seedling features under salinity but priming with calcium chloride and sodium chloride did not have any positive effects.Anthropogenic disturbances from local communities securing their livelihoods and basic subsistence needs have continuously fragmented natural ecosystems . Due to their legitimacy, the dependency of local farming communities on natural resources will likely increase in the coming years without any suitable alternatives. The burden and the pressure of the surrounding populations on the forest resources arise from poverty and lack of appropriate management systems,mobile vertical grow tables such as those that use participatory methods. The efficiency of participatory management in other areas has been demonstrated for monitoring bush fires, agricultural production, green plant growth and combating forest degradation. Therefore, PA systems based on reductionist principles often become degraded through normal anthropogenic pressure, which could be remediated by providing appropriate solutions based on sustainable development models. The foundational principles of sustainable management encourage economic development without interrupting the capacity for future generations to enjoy the natural resources. African forests are mostly natural forest which supports the needs of the surrounding households, particularly the rural population . Protected areas benefit greatly from sustainable management programs for many activities like controlled burning and other restoration efforts that can improve the conditions of natural forests . However, there is a lack of systematic vegetation monitoring in African forests and protected areas directed towards understanding the social dynamics of the surrounding populations.
Studies that examine which social factors are associated with disproportionate utilization of natural forest products would be useful, for example, to address the potential natural resource ramifications of low education and household income. There is a pressing need to manage forests and green spaces through the implementation of specific management programs and programs structuring alternative livelihoods from the results of such social research. Protected areas are a globally recognized structure for natural resources conservation, and make effective contributions towards natural resource management and restoration . The total expanse of the protected area was estimated by UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre at 21 million square kilometers, an area similar to that of the sum of the surfaces of three major countries, including India, Russia, and Afghanistan. The total area accounts for 12.9% of all continental land and 6.3% of the marine area. Initially, the purpose of protected areas was purely subjective, without taking into account securing basic survival needs that populations extracted from natural resources. Then, socio-economic factors and ecosystem service provisions appeared as instruments of sustainable development. The overarching goal of the concept of the protected area is the protection of biodiversity. However, natural resources objectives encounter enormous difficulties in the local and national sphere for ensuring practical efficacy in simultaneously serving the population’s needs. Conflicts about protection mandates often arise between the local population and the policymakers -. Due to the regulations and application of management in the field, conflicts ensue where there is a lack of support for the interests of the local population who live at the expense of protected areas. Protected area establishment often drafts management objectives, without prior consultation with local populations that prevent the use of the resources for the area on which they depend. Among several global PA, especially in Africa, conflicts arise from the imbalance between resource use and preservation of nature . The solution to this challenge is often to administer levels or zones of restriction to the access to the protected area to balance the need for resource use and preservation of nature .
Other research has also shown that this challenge links to land ownership issues. The local communities do not always have the rights of landowners in certain countries. Furthermore, the state holds the land ownership and can apply PA management policies according to the needs of the government and their perceptions of the local population. In countries where local communities hold land ownership, the application of protected area management techniques inevitably depends on the collaboration between the PA agents and the social party . Zimbabwe and Kenya are among the countries that have successfully implemented community-based protected area management . Applications have been proven effective through sharing revenues earned among the communities. showed that by enacting similar management techniques in Namibia then increased wild animal biodiversity and improved the tourism sector. In West Africa, especially in Sahelian countries such as Togo, there is a paucity of research attention on the topic of protected areas. Originally, traditional protected areas consisted of community-based management by sacred forest designations with no formal boundaries , which changed from periods during the colonization period and after the independence. Three-time periods can be historically distinguished related to protected areas in Togo. The first period includes the colonial and postcolonial periods characterized by the use of military force to protect natural resources. The second period extended from 1990 to the 21st century with less natural resource management and uncontrolled resource extraction due to socio-economic and political troubles during the democratization era. The third period, from 2000 to the present, sought the need to protect natural resources through strategies including establishing artificial visible or invisible boundaries. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Forest Resources of Togo,mobile vertical farm more than 80 protected areas established between 1938 and 1958 had the purpose of biodiversity preservation. However, they originated without collaboration with the residents. In the 1990s, after the democratization, different forms of human occupation became the main cause of protected area degradation. Thus, due to conflicts and dismissal by residents of previous designations of protected areas in Togo, additional research is needed to address challenges hindering the successful implementation of natural resources protections going forward. There is no previous research focusing on assessment of the management plans, socio-economic dependence and anthropogenic activities of the surrounding population, or the preservation of the natural resources in the Protected Areas of Oti-Keran, Togodo, and Abdoulaye fauna reserve in Togo. The current study aims to fill this gap by assessing the protected areas strategy in Togo under sustainable management models through the case study of Oti-Keran, Togodo, and Abdoulaye faunal reserve.Four eco-floristic areas divide Togo according to the vegetation type of each area. Two main regimes characterize the tropical climate type from the south to the north. Two types characterize the rainfall rhythm. In the northern areas, there is one rainy and one dry period. In the southern area, there are two rainy and two dry periods. There is an annual average temperature of around 27.8 degrees Celcius. The vegetation of Togo reported more than four thousand plant species and high species richness mainly from the forest species, as discovered by. Human activities threaten this rich flora by supplying basic needs for those who depend directly on forest resources for firewood energy and charcoal and also for animal grazing and hunting. The selected research areas are among the ten top protected areas of Togo: Abdoulaye faunal reserve managed by an international NGO and covers 30,000 hectares; Oti-Keran National Park decreased from 163,643 hectares to 69 hectares after being subjected to ongoing revision projects. Since 2002, Togodo National park revision projects resulted in a total decreased from 310,000 to 25,500 hectares, although dedicated to natural resources management.
In Togo, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Resources is in charge of the environment and natural resources management, including protected areas through the Department of Fauna and Hunting .At the national level, the socio-economic data was available from Indexmundi and UNEPWCMC database . The national data included time-series GDP, rural area population, terrestrial protected areas, and agriculture area surfaces. Local-level data was obtained from secondary data from the field trips to assess the state of protected areas in Togo by interviewing local populations and doing surveys on the degree of degradation, vulnerability, and management of these protected areas. As part of this analysis, we randomly sampled the protected areas of Oti-Kéran, Togodo, and Abdoulaye national parks for comparative analysis at the local level during August 2019. We surveyed villagers living near the protected areas using questionnaires designed to obtain information related to the villager’s implications in the management systems of these protected areas and to determine needs supplied by the protected areas. These questions included the presence and the absence of certain particular plants and animals, the presence or absence of management agents, and the importance of the protected areas for the villagers. The villager’s national identity and phone numbers were notified and verified before engaging the questions. The interview captured at least 70% of the villagers of at least 18 years old per village across the adjacent villages around OTA national parks with a yes or no access to the protected areas questions giving a total of 210 interviews of villagers across the 9 adjacent villages.While terrestrial areas are showing an upward trend ), forest areas are decreasing alarmingly . Anthropogenic disturbances related to agricultural demands and Figure 5 have risen to meet the food needs and extractive wood demands of the population .These populations are not only growing but also dominated by the younger generation. A large part of this country’s income comes from the agricultural sector, where the need to grow more food to feed this population effectively has been proportional to the increase of croplands and fallows. The degradation of forest lands and savannahs relates to the economic and financial survival of each household.