Farmers in rural Bushenyi, Uganda are creating your offset through agroforestry and small scale plantation projects, which help to protect the local environment and diversify farm income.
See the community on Google Maps.
Ugandan farmers receive income from carbon offsets by implementing agroforestry and small scale plantation projects. The projects also provide sustainable sources of fuel and building material from growing forests and woodlots of native trees.
You donation goes to Environment Conservation Trust Uganda (ECOTRUST), a local nonprofit that runs the Trees for Global Benefits program. ECOTRUST works with rural farmers to plant forests and manage them sustainably. Communities participating in the program pool offset funds to build schools and other important infrastructure.
When cleared land is reforested or existing native forests are protected, the trees draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The Trees for Global Benefit program is certified to the Plan Vivo Standards, and third-party verification by Rainforest Alliance is scheduled to begin in September 2008.
The place:
Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 150th in the world for Human Development Index (Human Development Report, 2002). In the Bushenyi District where ECOTRUST is implementing the Trees for Global Benefits project, farmland comprises 80% of the land use. Small land holdings typically of 1 - 4 hectares are commonly cultivated for banana (81%), bean (4%), maize (4%), sweet potato (4%), finger millet (3%) and sorghum (2%) as the main food crops. Cash crops include tea, coffee, cotton and Irish potato. Dairy livestock is also a dominant farming system.
In Uganda, 90% of the carbon emissions are from the land use sector, due to deforestation, energy demands (charcoal and firewood), and timber. Therefore, innovative and sustainable land management has the potential to be powerful tool in both fighting climate change and rural poverty.
ECOTRUST, who provides the administrative and technical support for the project, creates a carbon trust from offset purchases and distributes payments to local farmers. Farmers use these payments to implement their choice of agroforesty or small plantation projects.
These projects include:
- Planting of mixed native woodlots to be used for timber, such as mahogany, cedar, African cherry, laurel and silk trees.
- Boundary planting of trees for fuel and fruit.
- Fruit tree or orchard planting.
- Mixed use planting.
Farmers are allowed to choose their land management scheme based on their needs, including cash income, food security, timber, or fuel.
More about social benefits:
Farmers from the Bushenyi district who participate in the Trees for Global Benefits program have experience a wide range of social benefits. Carbon payments are a significant source of income to farmers in this poor region. In addition, the farmers received valuable education about the critical role that trees play soil conservation, watershed protection and biodiversity in their local environment. Crop productivity has been shown to increase through the use of improved land management techniques by farmers in the region.
More about verification:
Verification for the Trees for Global Benefits project, as with all other projects based on the Plan Vivo Standards, is an affordable scheme that utilizes local resources. Third-party verifiers are chosen by the project and approved by the Plan Vivo Foundation.
Verification costs are often an insurmountable barrier for small offset projects in the developing world. For that reason, Plan Vivo allows their projects to become initially registered based on a project review by experts in forestry and carbon sequestration, carbon accounting, and the local ecosystem. The projects then use carbon finance from initial offset sales to support a mandatory, third-party verification process that scales over time based on project growth.
While the Plan Vivo Foundation seeks to keep verification costs low so that communities benefit more, they still use high standards to approve local verifiers. The Plan Vivo Foundation only approves verifiers that:
- Have appropriate experience and expertise in forestry and carbon sequestration projects;
- Have appropriate experience working in developing countries;
- Have documented experience in verifying GHG reductions and using sustainability metrics;
- Are accredited by an international certification authority such as the CDM, ISO, California Climate Action Registry, FSC or other forestry certification programs.
Through this innovative and affordable verification scheme, the Plan Vivo Foundation seeks to transfer the maximum possible benefit to the communities implementing the project.
Links
Plan Vivo (Uganda)
