Through a combination of dryland forest protection and extraordinary community sustainable development activities, this project is estimated to avoid the gross emissions of over 48 million metric tonnes of CO2e which would have been emitted due to slash and burn deforestation over the 30 year project life, or an average of approximately 1,614,959 metric tonnes per year.
The full name of this project is “Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project Phase II – The Community Ranches”, and it builds on Wildlife Works’ first project (Phase I, Rukinga Ranch) which has been protecting forests, flora and fauna since 2006. The aim of this new, larger project is to bring the benefits of direct carbon financing to surrounding communities, while simultaneously addressing alternative livelihoods and protecting vital flora and fauna.
The project encompasses 169,741 hectares in Coast Province, Southeastern Kenya, where human-wildlife conflict has been a problem in the past as local residents are directly reliant on the environment for subsistence. This project directly addresses such sources of conflict in a holistic, sustainable approach, and on a large scale: the carbon reduction projections of over 1 million tonnes a year have earned it a mega-project classification from the Verra registry.
The project area is home to a fantastic diversity of mammals (over 50 species of large mammal, more than 20 species of bats), birds (over 300 species) and important populations of IUCN Red List species such as Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi), Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), Lion (Panthera leo) as well as over 500 African elephants (Loxidonta africana) seasonally.
The CO2 reductions will be drawn across multiple carbon pools: above- and below-ground forest biomass (forest carbon) and soil carbon, while actively protecting the project area from deforestation and degradation.
Nepal is a mountainous country challenged by its inherent topography and socioeconomic conditions; nearly one fourth of its population live below the poverty line. Household Air Pollution (HAP) is one of the biggest causes of premature deaths globally. In rural areas, especially remote and poor communities of Nepal, solid biomass fuel burning in the kitchens with inefficient cook stoves has posed a threat to not just health but also the atmosphere.
The project enables the distribution on a wide scale of efficient clean-burning cookstoves, improving the health outcomes of participating households. The clean-burning cookstoves reduce the use of biomass by as much as 2/3rds. This project is implemented in several districts of Nepal.
A 2016 study by the government of Nepal showed that 88.7% of the Nepalese households use firewood for cooking. Up to 3 kg of wood is used per day, having dire consequences on the health of women and children. Women are mostly responsible for gathering firewood and for the household food preparation.
In the project baseline (before this intervention) households were using traditional inefficient cookstoves or open fires for meeting their daily needs. The clean-burning stoves are designed to reduce smoke, particulate matter, and other gaseous emissions, thus creating cleaner indoor air for women and children.
The Improved Cookstoves in Nepal project enables widespread implementation of simple cookstove technology that has significant outcomes in environmental and social well-being. The project is being implemented in Baglung, Argakhanchi,Bara, Chitwan,Gulmi Kaski, Makwanpur, Myagdi, Parbat, and Syangja Districts in Nepal, providing easy access to clean cookstoves, and improving indoor air quality in all these rural regions.
This project supports important sustainable development in several ways. The project enables an innovative finance model that brings access to affordable clean energy, benefitting the local community’s economic health, alongside improved physical well-being. In combating poverty, the project provides for women led microfinance institutions that strengthens private sector led cookstove marketing. Project implementation creates local jobs, and through the reduced pressure on firewood gathering, protects and enhances the local biodiversity, protecting watersheds and forests.
The underlying theory of change supported by this project is that once the clean cookstove entrepreneurs are provided with Results-Based Financing (RBF) incentives, over a period of five years, the project will grow in capacity and will be able to continue to meet the ongoing demand. Through their initially supported activities, they will gradually be able to achieve greater production, quality assurance, and decrease their costs through economies of scale, so that the price of a portable cook stove will be reduced.
Papua New Guinea is the world’s largest exporter of tropical timber wood. Every year, the region loses approximately 1.4% of its forested land, and with it, critical habitat to some 5% of the world’s biodiversity. Much of the tropical wood exports are, in fact, illegal (The Guardian: Bulk of timber exports from Papua New Guinea won’t pass legal test). The forests of Papua New Guinea are, if allowed to exist, a massive global carbon sink. This makes Papua New Guinea a key area for intervention. The project proponent, NIHT Inc., is in a unique position to make a global stance against unsustainable timber harvesting and become a key conservation leader in the country.
NIHT has partnered with the traditional landowners of the Papua New Guinea islands of New Ireland and East New Britain to reduce deforestation initiated by industrial logging in the region. The preservation of these rainforests is essential to not only the carbon and biodiversity benefits mentioned above, but also the wellbeing and prosperity of the people of New Ireland. The project is located in the forested area of New Ireland and East New Britain and has evolved based on the input from, and needs expressed by, persons living in the region.
Since the forests within the project region contain significant biodiversity, the benefits of protecting these forests extend beyond carbon storage and sequestration. However, the project area was not protected from industrial logging prior to the project initiation and was slated to be commercially and un-sustainably logged.
The project has generated the majority of its emissions reductions through the avoidance of the initial planned industrial timber operations, and during this first monitoring period it has maintained the integrity of the forest through forest monitoring, inventories, and community engagement. The project aims to alleviate pressures on the forests through financial support of clans in the area. By also providing an alternative livelihood and income source via carbon finance, the project makes it possible to avoid conducting industrial scale commercial timber harvesting in the area, and instead provide revenues to communities through conservation and sustainable management initiatives.
This project activity, beyond protecting local forests and biodiversity, contributes to social and economic development in one of the poorest and most isolated areas of Papua New Guinea. Through the avoidance of carrying out exploitative industrial commercial timber harvesting in the protected area, and the cascading deforestation that follows, the project expects to generate over 55 million tons of CO2 emissions reductions across the 30 year project lifetime. This figure assumes future additions of new project areas over the project lifetime, and during the first monitoring period, in which the project has added one new project area, it has already generated net emissions reductions of 1,680,306 tCO2e.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWNkf4mq3sQ
Images and video of some of NIHT leadership’s visit to Papua New Guinea in 2019.
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve project, an initiative by InfiniteEARTH, aims to reduce Indonesia’s emissions by preserving some 64,000 hectares of tropical peat swamp forest. This area, rich in biodiversity, includes the endangered Bornean orangutan. The project area was slated by the Provincial government to be converted into four palm oil estates, and is now preserved in perpetuity. Located on the southern coast of Borneo in the province of Central Kalimantan, the project is designed to protect the integrity of the adjacent world-renowned Tanjung Puting National Park by creating a physical buffer zone on the full extent of the ~90km eastern border of the park. This REDD+ project is also certified to the Verra Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard.
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve project preserves 64,000 hectares of tropical peat swamp forest, rich in biodiversity.
REDD+ refers to projects that “reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation”. REDD projects are found in developing countries, and represent a new approach to sustainable forest management marked by focus on the enhancement of forest carbon stocks and community engagement in sustainable development.
Rimba Raya provides for:
Improved community health outcomes
Handicraft cottage industry
Recycle Bank initiative
Tree planting
Zu-Per (Shrimp paste) a women’s village enterprise
Clean water (filter distribution)
Some more about how the project has positively affected its community:
