The Association Decan is a wildlife conservation project founded by Bertrand LaFrance. Concerned with education, habitat conservation it also supports a captive cheetah breeding programme as well as tortoise and gazelle programmes. A substantial visitor center and observation towers have been completed, and a clearing programme for the invasive Prosopis has been started.

In 2007, two expeditions visited the area. Zomo Fisher and Sam Cartwright of Imperial College London are completing their MSc projects on the Foret du Dai and the Djibouti Fancolin and Henry Ford and Gavin Conochie collected seed for the Millenium Seed bank and half a dozen Botanical gardens round the world as part of a conservation programme funded by the International Palm Society. Henry and Gavin also completed part of the Darwin Initiative Scoping programme