Tag Archives: REDD

Forests: Repairing the Natural World

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Deborah Chisale, Katowo School

FYF supports schools in Malawi to establish tree nurseries that will act as a resource base for communities.

June 5th is World Environment Day. A couple of days ago UNEP published a report, in the lead up to WED making an Economic Case for Repairing the Natural World.

The report cites the fact that, in Vietnam “planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves has cost just over $1 million but saved annual expenditure on dyke maintenance of well over $7 million” as one example of the fact that “compared to loss of ecosystem services, well-planned restorations may provide cost benefit ratios of 3 75 in terms of return on investment.”

On May 20th I attended an Earthwatch Institute lecture on the regeneration of forests with talks by Dr Mark Huxham from Napier University and Dr Glen Reynolds from the Royal Society’s South East Asia Rainforest Research Programme in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

Some of the key points made by the speakers underline, I think, the need for an amplification of the purely ‘economic’ focus of the report. Both Huxham and Reynolds spoke of the conflict between the ecological services provided by forests such as protection from erosion and water management that forests provide to many in the area (as well as their importance in fighting the battle against climate change) and the private benefits to the few from destruction of the forests for logging and alternative uses such as palm oil or shrimp farming.

In working with tribal people in India, FYF has found that forests have been degraded by logging and industrial development. This seriously impacts on the livelihoods of the indigenous population who depend on non-timber forest produce for food, medicine and craft activities which can provide a small income. Where forests have economic value for logging or as wildlife reserves, tribal people are often moved out of or kept out of the forests where their families have lived for generations. Having been deprived of education they find it difficult to fight the legal battles to retain or regain access to the forests. In Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jkarkhand FYF supports tribal people to restore their rights to access forests for sustainable use and manage them as a community.

Meanwhile in Malawi much of the forest cover has been depleted by the pressures of a growing population for land for homes, agriculture and firewood. We support communities to regenerate local forests to provide protection from erosion, a sustainable source of firewood and help the land to store what rain does fall.

REDD: What would it mean for the tribal communities?

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At a first glance Reducing Carbon Emissions through Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) seems to be the ideal solution for conserving the forest environment and tackling climate change, what with its attractive incentives, mutual benefits and ‘green’ goals. With its innovative approach, it plays by the rules of the free market. REDD aims to increase the value of trees as standing rather than cut, the idea being that if people are rewarded for managing the forest, they will have more incentive to sustain it.

Tribal man in Chhattisgarh - What will REDD do for him?

REDD is an initiative adopted by several countries and could rapidly become a global strategy, as the likes of UNEP and World Bank are encouraging countries to employ it.

The Indian government is very keen to use REDD strategies to sustain its forests. But have they considered the sustainability of the livelihoods of adivasis, where forest produce is their sole source of income?

Living on the fringes of society tribal people struggle to make sure that their rights are fulfilled. For instance, the 2006 Forest Rights Act gives land rights, use rights and protection and conservation rights to forest dwellers and people dependent on forest resources. These individual and community rights are either not acknowledged or are simply repressed by the government officials, which indicates that REDD will merely increase the rate of land grabbing and illegal eviction of indigenous people, leaving them even more deprived and vulnerable than before.

What the REDD scheme overlooks is the motivation factor i.e. financial gain. This is an arena waiting to be exploited by large corporations and corrupt government officials. Rewards of finance and carbon credits will encourage government agencies to repress the community voices and interests in order to give private companies access to the forest lands.

Further commodification of forest resources, according to REDD’s strategy, is not the solution. An effective method for tackling these issues would be to ensure that the government of India implements and respects the existing legislations in India.

Astami Sarder - Will she be able to participate in devising REDD strategies?


REDD is rapidly becoming an influential strategy. But who will reap the benefits? The impoverished communities who are marginalised from mainstream dominant society or the powerful players who would be able to manipulate the game and exploit the loopholes for financial profits?

Participation of tribal people in any decisions made about forest management is the legitimate way to control climate change. Otherwise, however noble the intention may be, climate justice will inevitably lead to grave injustice to the tribal people.

Trees “vital for food security” in Africa

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Integrating fleshy plants and trees into farming systems can help overcome food security challenges

NAIROBI, 28 August 2009 (IRIN) – Countries tackling food insecurity and climate change adaptation can greatly benefit from agroforestry – integrating fleshy plants and trees into their farming systems, environmental specialists say.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a history of food insecurity brought on by meagre rains, land degradation, declining soil fertility and bad management of resources, among other factors.

“How do we, in a world of more than six billion people, rising to perhaps over nine billion, feed everyone while simultaneously securing the ecosystem services such as forests and wetlands that underpin agriculture, and indeed life itself in the first place?” Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), posited at the second World Congress on Agroforestry in Nairobi.

“We can empower people – not to wait for others to do something for them – but to take the initiative, one tree at a time,” Steiner said. “Trees are one of nature’s most ingenious answers to many of our problems.”

Agroforestry helps supply fodder, fruit and nuts as well as trees and shrubs that produce gums, resins and valuable medicines.

Steiner said agroforestry may have many roles to play in the new landscape of rewarding countries for their natural or nature-based services.

“Firstly it offers the potential for maximizing sustainable food production in the zones surrounding natural forests while also boosting biodiversity and other ‘natural infrastructure’.

“Secondly, it offers an opportunity for timber production and thus alternative livelihoods to meet perhaps a supply gap that may emerge under a fully-fledged REDD [Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation] regime.

“Thirdly these agroforestry areas can also potentially secure flows from carbon finance in their own right.”

Better REDD

REDD is a strategy to help local communities conserve forests, including funding these efforts through governments and market-based mechanisms, such as trading the carbon stored by forests as credits to greenhouse gas-emitting industries.

Trees such as the Faidherbia albida, a leguminous acacia-like tree, are especially useful.

“Faidherbia goes dormant at the beginning of the rains and deposits abundant quantities of organic fertilizer on to the food crops to provide nutrients and increase yields, totally free of charge,” said Dennis Garrity, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Director-General. “They are fertilizer factories in the food crop fields.”

The leaves and pods of the Faidherbia, which are adapted to a wide array of climates and soils from deserts to humid tropics, provide fodder in the dry season too.

Garrity said: “The much higher food prices… have exacerbated the pain of hunger in hundreds of millions of households. The standard solutions just aren’t working. The question is, what are we as agroforestry scientists going to do about it? What are we going to contribute to sustainable solutions?”

With shrinking forests, he said, “the rising demand for tree products will have to be met from farm-grown sources. Clearly, agroforestry science has much to offer in overcoming the food security challenges in Africa, and elsewhere in the world.”

Tree cover

According to a 24 August report by ICRAF, “tree cover is a common feature on agricultural land”, and represents over one billion hectares of land.

“Agroforestry, if defined by tree cover of greater than 10 percent on agricultural land, is widespread, found on 46 percent of all agricultural land area globally, and affecting 30 percent of rural populations,” stated the report.

Namanga Ngongi, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), said: “Seventy-five percent of Africa’s farm lands are degraded, and deforestation is taking place at four times the global average, destroying 1 percent of our forests every year.”

Agroforestry alone could remove 50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 50 years, meeting about a third of the world’s total carbon reduction challenge, according to ICRAF studies.

Carbon payback

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai suggested that subsistence farmers might be more willing to invest in farming trees if there were carbon credit revenue guarantees.

UNEP recently launched a Carbon Benefits Project in the catchments of Lake Victoria, Niger, Nigeria and China, which seeks to find a standardized way of assessing how much carbon is actually locked away in vegetation and in soils under different land-management regimes.

This has been a major challenge for African smallholders seeking to access the carbon market. Preliminary findings are expected within 18 months.

According to Steiner, economic incentives are required to reverse deforestation and forest degradation.

“…Simply locking away forests to secure their carbon as if they are the Queen’s jewels, or putting up the modern equivalent of a Berlin Wall between forests and people, is almost certainly folly and almost certainly a recipe for disaster,” he said.

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