World vision Ethiopia, Humbo Assisted natural regeneration project

by Hailu Teferahailu_tefera@wvi.org

Communicating Carbon Workshop12-14 October 2011

Nairobi, Kenya

• Located south west of the country 380km away from the capital city

Project Location

Local ContextPrior to the project, the site was open for access. All tree species were cleared due to demand for

•timber, •Firewood• charcoal production

The mountain became denudedThese has result in

•soil erosion, flooding and large gully formation in down stream farm land• coverage of farm land with silt loads, cobbles and boulders

Cont…• Area 2728ha,Managed by 7 forest

development and protection legally established cooperatives who are living adjacent to project site

• Each cooperative has been given land user right certificate by the government

• Each forest cooperative has a member of 400-870 house holds How many men and women?

• Technique we are using is protecting the degraded hill from human and animal interference to help naturally regenerate from live stamps and soil seedbanks, only 270ha of it is planted with new seedlings

Describing Carbon Sequestration• Site identification together with district level government staff

• Consultation workshops were conducted at Zone level-participants( federal, regional, zonal and district level gov’t body and community representative on the concept of carbon

• The workshop is repeated at district level with more participants from the community

• once we get community and gov’t consent, various discussions were organized at village level to get the consent of majority of a community and discussion on the impact of land degradation, causes and consequences on yield reduction, flood hazards, local climate change and possible measures has been carried out

• Documenting minute and every piece of decision done by farmer

Non-Financial Benefits

Environmental• Increased vegetation

cover

• Decrease in soil and wind erosion,

• increased infiltration

• increased in biodiversity-wild lives have started to come back to home

• Improved microclimate

Social benefits• Recognition of user rights of communities to

manage the forest

• Uptake of the FMNR technique

• Awareness creation and increased knowledge

• Legal recognition and written bye laws Partnership benefits

• It has brought innovative partnership among Humbo community, the Ethiopian Government, World Vision Ethiopia, World Vision Australia and World Bank.

• This innovative partnership approach generated learnings that can be leveraged for the development of similar projects in the future in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa.

Financial Benefits•Besides the obvious tree re-growth, people have benefited from•Fire wood from pruned branch•Grass harvesting through cut and carry•Income from Carbon revenue. Out of the total 880,295t C02 expected to be sequestered, only 165,000t is sold to World bank and $726,000expected to come to community in the 1st ten years-(1st payment 34,184USD/ 579,029 ETB transferred to community & have started implementing their plan -The 2nd $48,915 on the way-communities are allowed to cut and sell 50% of the trees at 11th and 21st

year

Languages we used to convey carbon issue• to convey that release of C02 is

harmful, we used smoke as a result of wood burning, smoke coming out of car, factory etc as an example

• We tried to educate communities on benefits before and the potential benefits after project specially co benefits

• We have used different tools to increase awareness of the community T-shirt, posters, environment club, review meeting, inviting community representative to national CC workshops, experience sharing trip and creating discussion forum after each visit, organizing special event eg. environment day, involve students in the school (songs, poems), consultation meeting, news letter,

Tools most useful to explain the meaning of carbon sequestration

• drawings- diagrams and sketches are more simple to be understood by farmers please bring examples

• films/drama/theater- the farmers easily understand the process while relaxing

• radios/TV- This days most farmers have at least radios that would enable them to access the information. In addition to that information transferred through radio and TV are considered seriously by the farmers

• Consultations: will give every farmers the chance to openly discuss, ask and comment. Through this two way discussion the farmers understand the concept

challenges and opportunities we have faced on our communication system

• Gathering of big number of community at a very earlier period will not help the community understand the concept. The reasons are:– Farmers are always hesitant and they may be mislead by

wrong perception of a single person that may lead them to rebel

– There was a time that they perceived as if their land was to be given to some external body and their reaction was not good

• the solution was discontinuing the meeting and continued some other time together with all concerned govt body in small groups and then slowly to large groups

Concept of cost benefit analysis• [the project was conveying the concept of cost

benefit analysis focusing on the future environmental and economic benefits.

• educating the farmers on the multiple benefits of forest – fire wood, grass, NTFP and timber product, advantages and disadvantages of forest on agricultural production, livestock e.t.c, sustainable forest management

• taking adequate time until they understand the future benefits of the forest and we were telling them the minimum expected revenue than the maximum one

• identifying and addressing the immediate needs of the vulnerable ones

Cont..

• Challenge: community over expectation due to information from wrong sources

• How we addressed:– frequent discussion, consultation to clear ambiguity– negation with the buyer to release payment before

verification – Care full follow up not to fail due to lack of carbon

compliance• Opportunities

– being the first large AR project money people visited the area and that has unanimously increased community awareness

Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV)

• we have conducted training on the monitoring plan prepared.• Training has been given on modality of payment, compliance

and consequence of week performance from the beginning– We educated they by synchronizing with the experience they

have- eg Auditing and consequence of audit finding– Don’t talk much about money aspect, rather on contribution

to sustainable development• We didn’t tell them only the opportunity i.e money aspect) but

emphasized on the requirement.• Participated on practical data collection, boundary

delineation, base line carbon measurement and so on from the beginning and that has helped them to understand the seriousness of the project

Comment on effective communication tool on MRV

• Communicate them with simple language that they are familiar- eg. Auditing

• care must be taken not to exaggerate things

• communicate clearly to communities from the beginning

• give chance to comment on MRV to collect their feed back

• don’t frustrate but tell them the reality and involve them exercise the measurement technique

challenges

-desperation/lack of confidence

-quality of data, document handling, recording

-seeking special benefit those who are regularly involved on monitoring and data collection

How did you address the challenge

– Educate by doing

– Refreshment training

– Working in group (government expert, project staff) until they become expertise

– Close follow up and encouragement, covering their lunch cost, but once they tested it now they are energetic

Legal issues

• Languages used to explain contracts between farmers and buyer was English and then interpreted into local language

• discussed one by one on the draft document with the farmers and finalized incorporating their comment

• Focus on roles and responsibilities and consequence to failure to deliver

• Sign on sub Emission Reduction Agreement between, WVE, government and each community/cooperative

• Conflict resolution training has been given for religious leaders and elderly community members, forest cooperative leaders using the local/ cultural values

• Communication tools used to communicate legal issue was by trying to explain the traditional norm and culture that they have been using to take any remedial measure for actions that are illegal

Thank you!