climate change report 2009: green belt movement

8/9/2019 Climate Change Report 2009: Green Belt Movement

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Responding to ClimateChange rom the Grassroots:

The Green Belt Movement Approach

I cannot live without thegreen trees, and nor can you

Wangari Maathai


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Foreword by Wangari Maathai

Trees provide many things: ood, shade, wood-energy, building and encing materials. Theyregulate micro-climates and rainall patterns, hold soil to the ground, serve as habitats or otherlie orms and help to harvest and retain rainwater. They sequester carbon and thereby clean the air.

Among the lessons learnt in the last three decades o Green Belt Movements work is that treeplanting continues to bring communities together, build a common purpose, more sustainablelivelihoods, and over time, build resilience. Successul tree planting also requires capacity,commitment, proper nancing, political wi ll and good governance. It demands ownership bycommunities involved, respect or rights and, most importantly, that local people remain unitedbehind a common vision.

Preventing deorestation and increasing tree cover is challenging but the rewards to communitiesand country are maniold and provide benets ar beyond simply absorbing carbon.

Trees and Forests have a signicant role to play in a global climate deal when the right trees areplanted in the right places and their survival is ensured. They must a lso simultaneously improve thelivelihoods o local communities. The Green Belt Movements integrated and holistic approach toclimate change addresses livelihoods o communities, adaptation, mitigation and sustainabledevelopment.

As we continue, we thank our partners or joining us on the journey to reduce vulnerability ocommunities to climate change by not on ly continuing to plant trees, but by also reducingdeorestation and orest degradation.

Proessor Wangari MaathaiFounder, the Green Belt MovementNobel Peace Laureate, 2004

With over 30 years o experience in engaging communitiesat the grassroots to address issues o environmentaldegradation, gender and human rights, GBM is uniquelypositioned to oer an integrated response to climatechange based on a number o actors:

GBM has a tested model or community-led reorestationwhich takes into account the value o threatenedecosystems as well as community livelihoods.

The GBM model addresses adaptation, mitigation andsustainable development strategies.

GBMs approach provides multiple benets across anumber o developmental areas.

GBM Founder, Wangari Maathai, is a global advocateor Arica, women, climate justice and integrated climatechange solutions.

GBM supports communities to plant and nurture trees, which

improves their livelihoods and helps them become activeparticipants in environmental regeneration. GBMs longterm vision is to substantially increase orest cover in Kenya

whilst helping to create sustainable livelihoods or all.


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IntroductionThe Green Belt Movement (GBM) has an existing network o over4,000 community groups in Kenya mobilized to plant trees andprotect their natural environment. These community groups activelyengage with climate change in three ways:

Mitigation, carbon sequestration through tree planting andecosystem conservation and management.

Adaptation, promoting tree planting and sustainableagricultural techniques including growing o indigenous ood cropsto enhance ood security, harvesting rain water and curbing soilerosion to build resilience.

Promotion of Sustainable development: , livelihooddiversication and education to become more economically resilientand make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).

This report shares the experience o the Green Belt Movement as itseeks to address the challenges o climate change. GBMs holistic,grassroots approach to environmental management responds tomultiple problems aced by communities including the negative impacto climate change. The ollowing document will examine how thisapproach reduces environmental deterioration and provides sustainablelivelihoods to local communities. As a non-governmental organization(NGO), GBM does not have all the answers. However, ater 30 yearso work at the grassroots level and particularly with women, there havebeen lessons learnt that provide a tried and tested model that couldeectively respond to the current envi ronmental crisis precipitated byclimate change.

Climate change is the greatest

humanitarian challenge acing

mankind today. And it is a challenge

that has a grave injustice at its heart.

Kof Annan

www.greenbeltmovement.org

Climate Change: an issue o Justiceand Security

Temperatures are rising because o an increase o green house gases(GHG) in the atmosphere and much o the GHG emissions havebeen made by developed countries which powered their economies

with the burning o ossil uels. The Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) has now explicitly stated that climatechange will seriously aect rst and oremost the poorest and most

vulnerable people on the planet, i.e. the people in less developedcountries and especially in Arica. It is unair that those who bearlittle responsibility to the crisis should pay the highest prices. Climatechange is an issue o climate or carbon injustice.

Arica and tropical regions where agricultural yields fuctuatesignicantly with climatic variation will be especially hard hit byclimate change. Scientically modelled trends clearly show that ianthropogenic global warming continues at the current rate there will

be catastrophe in Arica.

As Wangari Maathai says, First o all there will be a ast spread o theSahara desert. It is spreading now. So crises like what is happening inKenya and Darur will get much worse. There will be violent competitionover shrinking arable land, grazing land and water points as the desertspreads and dries up the land, rivers and lakes. Second, there will be crop

ailure because o changing rainall patterns, and we will get massivestarvation and migrations. As we all know, people dont sit down and waitto die. They migrate and do whatever they can to overcome political andeconomic barriers. Climate change is thereore also an issue o security.

An eective and air response to climate change requires not justemission reductions, but also a signicant scale-up o support romthe developed world to the less developed world to nance adaptationand mitigation. This needs to include nance or reorestation andprevention o ongoing deorestation and orest degradation, alsoknown as REDD+.

There is also need or technology transer and nances to acilitatethe process. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)estimated that the amount o additional unds to address the impacto adaptation alone would require $86 billion per year. 1 Besides thecollective and common responsibility, climate change also calls orthe principle o polluter pays or the harm pollution is causing.

Whether the world leadership is ready to commit substantial nancialresources to deal with the crisis o climate change will only becomeclear in the days ahead.

1 IPCC (2007b). Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.Contribution o Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report o theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press,New York


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What is a orest?

What constitutes a orest is a vital denition when it comes todiscussing the role orests will play in ghting climate change.UNFCCC only gives three criteria or dening a orest: treecanopy cover, tree height and area covered.

GBM advocates or the protection o standing naturalorests, and places great emphasis on the dierence between aplantation o exotic trees and a native orest. A plantation is amonoculture arm o exotic trees.

Chopping down a natural orest and replacing it with aplantation eliminates multiple benets that orests provideincluding: water catchment, climate regulation, biodiversityand use o non-orest products like medicine and ood.

In the same way as there is no

solution to climate change without

orestry, there is no solution to

deorestation without the support o

orest populations

His Excellency Bharrat Jagdeo, Presidento Guyana2

Forests and Agriculture as part othe solutionsArguably, approximately 20% o global emissions come rom land usechange, mainly the clearing and bu rning o orests.3 The environmentalimpact o this is t wo-old: deorestation causes a direct rise in emissionsand reduces the planets natural ability to remove CO2. So to be eectivea global climate deal must include ecosystem carbon management o whichreducing emissions rom agriculture and deorestation is paramount.

A primary driver o orest degradation is unsustainable agriculturalpractices such as slash and burn, and replacing o indigenous orests withcommercial monocultures. As biodiversity is lost and agricultural landdegrades, armers expand into new a reas, oten at the expense o orests.

With the loss o vegetation comes the loss o soil and soil ertility as wellas the hydrological services o orests. All these are drivers o reductiono water; and they lay the ground or desertication processes. Tostop these drivers communities have an important role to play.

The Green Belt MovementApproach to Climate Change

With over 30 years o experience in engaging communities at thegrassroots level, creating a linkage between conservation, sustainablelivelihoods and peace has been at the heart o GBMs work since itsinception. GBM works with a voluntary network o women and theiramilies who orm community groups and establish tree nurseries. Todate over 45 million trees have been planted across the country. Oncegroups are ormed and sensitized to environmental issues a range oprojects are established to address local needs.

Individual farmers and groups plant a mixture o exotic and nativespecies o trees on arms and public lands. They only plant nativetree species in orests. The species include: Prunus Aricana, OleaArican, Podocarpus Spp, Cordia Aricana, Juniperus Procera, VitexKeniensis, and Hagenia among others depending on the ecological zones.

Investing in AdaptationCommunities that depend on subsistence arming are the most vulnerable

to the negative eects o climate change, because i their crops ailthey do not have the purchasing power to go to t he market. To improvetheir security rural people will need to become more resilient to changesin water availability and to extreme weather patterns. Traditionalknowledge and strategies have an important role to play in climateresilience. Droughts have been experienced beore and local knowledgecan inorm or an eective response. Encouraging armers to strengthenindigenous knowledge systems and build upon them creates morecommunity ownership o solutions and reduces their vulnerability. 4

2 Parker, C., Mitchell, A., Trivedi, M., Mardas, N. (2009) The Little REDD+ Book

3 Qur, C., et al, (2007) Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growthrom economic activity, carbon intensity, and eciency o natural sinks, Proceedingso the National Academy o Sciences 104, 18866-18870

4 IPCC (2007b). Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.Contribution o Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report o theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, New York


Climate Change and GenderAround the world women are already disproportionatelyaected by climate change. Two-thirds o the people living inextreme poverty are women. As climate impacts deepen, theseeects are likely to worsen. Women are disproportionatelyaected because o the roles they play in households; theyare the key providers o ood, uel and water. The impacts oclimate change directly aect the availability o these vitalresources. Women may also have reduced access to land andnatural resources, reduced ability to earn a living and less

voice in decision making. However, women are not victims butpowerul change makers in their communities! By empowering

women over the last 30 years GBM has highlighted the rolethat women play as key protectors and advocates or theenvironment. They deserve climate justice.


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GBM Adaptation strategysupports the ollowing activities thatmeet the needs o rural communities:

Investing in MitigationGBM saeguards and restores carbon in three systems orests,

wetlands and agriculture. Mitigation against global warming involvestaking actions to reduce emissions and then to enhance sinks. 6 Largescale and ongoing mitigation eorts are urgently required to reducethe risk o dangerous run-away climate change and that is exactly

what GBM is doing especially in protecting standing orests andintensiying re-aorestation. This is especially in the degraded areaso the ve orested water towers o Kenya, where over 90% o all

water in the country originates and about 70% o the populationderive their livelihoods.

Planting trees is the rst step, however ensuring their survival isessential. The long-term survival o trees is central to GBMs treeplanting strategy. This is monitored by a new state o the art GISlaboratory. Periodic land use change reviews in collaboration withgovernment agencies and other international NGOs will help tosaeguard against uture ownership issues.

GBM is also engaged in active advocacy or national and regionalorest protection such as Kenyas REDD plan, the Green Wall oArica and the Congo Basin Forest Fund. Educating armers on skills

to increase arm productivity helps to keep them rom encroaching onorested areas.

Sustainable and holistic development has been GBMs approach andit has developed an internationally recognised, truly grassroots, 10step model o community mobilization and development in whichlocal people themselves identiy problems and take action to realizetheir solutions. GBM intervenes to restore ecosystems and to createa buer against the negative eects o climate change with dierentco-benets. Unless communities do the work themselves, own it andbelieve in it, those who do it or them invest in unsustainable eortsthat are not worth the time or the money spent.

5 UNEP (2009), The Natural Fix?: The Role o Ecosystems in Climate Mitigation6 IPCC Glossary Working Group III, p. 818, www.ipcc.ch/pd/glossary/ar4-wg3.pd

Concern Actions (examples) Outcome

Access to water Dig channels to guide rain water into arms and ponds Rainwater harvesting o roos and roads) Build sand dams

Irrigated felds and gardens Improved crop yields Improved water security

Alternativeincome generatingactivities (IGAs)

Develop sustainable orest IGAs Community tourism and eco-tourism Capacity building o women in business enterprising,

business support

More money at household level Improved local economies Improved resilience

Agriculturalresilience

Increase use o indigenous crops Kitchen gardens, no till arming and irrigation with rainwater Plant trees to stop soil erosion and or soil nutrient

enhancement

Improved yields Better nutrition Improved local economies

Environmentalrehabilitation

Plant trees, Protect standing orests Remove alien species that impact negatively on water table

e.g. Eucalyptus Advocate or better environment laws

Enhanced ecosystem services More resilient ecosystems Protection o orests, riverine systems

and wetlands

Multiple benets o the GBM approach:

er the coming decades these eorts

ht reduce well over 50 gigatonnes

rbon emissions that would

rwise enter the atmosphere.

m Steiner, Executive Director Unitedons Environment Programme (UNEP) 5

Climate change

adaptation andmitigation using

GBM approach

Livelihoodsresources &

ood security

SoilProtection

Biodiversity,trees and othernative species

Hydrology &water harvesting

Democracy,governance &engagement

Peace &justice

GIS @ GBMThe introduction o a Geographic Inormation System (GIS)and Remote Sensing- the use o satellite data- has provided anew tool or planning and monitoring projects. The GIS labhas trained over 100 GBM sta on eld-based data collectionand baseline surveys to support the implementation andmanagement o GBM projects in Kenya. Handheld GlobalPositioning System (GPS) devices are being used to collect

data on tree nurseries, tree planting, socio-economic indicatorsand eld measurements on biomass and biodiversity.

The GIS lab is working with sta and communities to developa comprehensive database o GBM projects which will providea complete inventory o project inormation. This quantitativetool is invaluable in the planning and implementation olandscape-scale projects. The Lab is also working on spatial analysisto support national integrated conservation and developmentplans and the development o web applications to supportdata sharing. Inormation products rom the GIS lab such asmaps and charts are powerul communication tools to showstakeholders how Arica is being impacted by climate change.

We are seeing more regular heat

waves. Droughts are more requent

and last longer. Our rivers and wells

are drying up. The seasons have

changed. The rain is not predictable

now which makes planting crops and

trees more difcult. Farmers cannot

tell when to plant.

Njogu Kahare, GBM Programme Ofcer


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Lessons Learnt:Implications or Decision Makers

The Stern Review described climate change as the greatest andwidest-ranging market ailure ever seen.7 Funding relevant initiativesnow will be ar more eective than money spent in 10 years timeto prevent urther deorestation, protect the great terrestrial carbonsinks, the mighty tropical orests which are also the lungs o the

world. Thereore, it is vitally important to agree and implementemergency measures to begin to slow deorestation and orestdegradation now.It will take a combination o nancial and policy mechanisms toprotect orests and achieve signicant reduction o deorestation anddegradation rates. To achieve this, it is crucial that the ollowing aretaken into consideration:

Capacity building or governments so that they implement eectivestrategies to protect critical ecosystems and land rights issues.

Capacity building and support or local populations so they canshit away rom livelihoods that deplete orests.

Suitable monitoring and measuring mechanisms or orest carbonprojects.

Protection o ecosystems by prioritizing indigenous trees, and treeplanting in water catchments and areas rich in biodiversity.

Transer o technology to developing countries. Financial resources to acilitate many o the processes

This is a crucial time in human history. The challenge o climatechange requires that humanity shares its wealth more responsibly andaccountably, and also shares it more equitably. It also needs to treadmore lightly on the earth and reduce its carbon ootprint or a betteruture. Time is not on our side but a better world is within our reach,i there be the political will rom leaders.

7 Stern, N,. (2006) Stern Review: the economics o climate change Cabinet Oce-HM Treasury UK

We are all in this together irrespective

o our level o contribution to the

problem. Business-as-usual or anyone

would be a tragedy.

Wangari Maathai (2009) Address to theUN General Assembly on behal o CivilSociety

Carbon FinanceCarbon nance projects are playing a valuable role in creatingawareness o climate change among local communities and othersectors. However, developing countries will need to have morerobust institutions to eectively implement these kinds o projects.

In Arica there are large numbers o small-scale armers whoaccess orest lands or cultivation. In Kenya, or example, a orestbased arming system, also known as the shamba system, isentrenched in the Forest Act. Under the system communities areallowed to grow crops along with exotic tree species. This hasresulted in the degradation o the indigenous orests, especially

with the invasion o new species that eliminate other biodiversity.

GBM pilots a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project.The experience highlights the need or governments policies

and programmes to be aligned with specic requirements orcarbon projects. CDM calls or projects to certiy there will beno leakage. In Kenya, some o the challenges aced includegrazing o domestic animals in orests as well as the monoculturedevelopments at the expense o orests, the shamba system.

These challenges will limit the number o projects that can beimplemented.

A great deal o due diligence needs to be done where communitiesare being involved to ensure successul CDM projects.Developing countries policy has to allow carbon nanceprojects to thrive without denying communities their rights.As climate change is a cross cutting issue, it will require aholistic approach at all levels.


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KenyaGreen Belt MovementAdams Acarde, Kilimani Lane O ElgeyoMarakwet Rd.P.O Box 67545 - 00200 Nairobi KenyaTel: +254 20 3871523/3873057Email: [email protected]

United KingdomGreen Belt Movement InternationalDevelopment House56-64 Leonard StreetLondon EC2A 4JXUnited KingdomTel: +44 (0) 20 7549 0395Email: [email protected]

United StatesGreen Belt Movement International1666 K St, NW, Suite 440Washington, DC 20006Tel: +1 (202) 457 8080Email: [email protected]

Congo Basin Forest EcosystemThe Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem is the second largest tropical orest in the world ater the Amazon.It crosses the borders o 11 countries and covers almost 50% o the land mass o Central Arica, sustainingover 50 million people in the region. The Congo Basin ecosystem plays a vital role in stabilising the globalclimate and needs to be protected. In 2005 Wangari Maathai was appointed Goodwill Ambassador tothe Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem by the 11 Heads o State in the region to advocate or the orest.At the launch o the Congo Basin Forest Fund in June 2008, a multi-donor und to take early action toprotect the orests in the Congo Basin region, Wangari Maathai said, The Congo River Basin does notneed us. We need it... The stakes are high, but our uture depends on it.

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