The Republic of Benin is not a forest country like its peers such as Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana etc. This is why the very first measures taken by the Beninese State in the preservation of the environment and the conservation of nature consisted in the creation of a national forest service and the adoption of forest policies and guidelines in favor of the establishment of a national
forest domain between 1940-1950. One of the forms of development of this national forest heritage consisted mainly of afforestation actions with the technical support of SATEC and CTFT. These actions have made it possible to establish forests planted in some of the classified forests and reforestation areas in order to increase the wood yield per hectare of these wooded areas.

In order to give more visibility to reforestation actions, the National Forestry Development Company was created in 1970 but the difficulties of financial resources will militate in favor of the dissolution of this company in 1982. In the meantime, the international community will declare 1980 as the international year of trees and Benin, in its adherence to this vision, has multiplied its reforestation efforts through a number of forest resource development projects. The succession of years of drought and the accelerated degradation of natural resources led the country to a national seminar on combating drought and desertification in April 1985. One of the major resolutions of this seminar was the institutionalization of National Tree Day and the National Reforestation Campaign.