Download Makira REDD+ Project, Madagascar Summary of the Project The area

Makira REDD+ Project, Madagascar
Madagascar is considered to be one of the top five biodiversity hotspots in the world due to more than 75% of all
animal and plant species being endemic while less than 10% of its primary vegetation is remaining.1 The Makira
project plays an essential role in biodiversity protection by limiting deforestation in 360,000 hectares (more than twice
the size of greater London) of the Makira forest and working with communities around the forest in a ‘protection zone’
of 320,000 hectares.
The project is validated to the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and has also achieved Gold Level of the Climate,
Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard, due to its huge biodiversity benefits and its extensive work with
communities to assist in adapting to the impacts of climate change.
Summary of the Project
• Limits deforestation in 360,000 hectares of humid forest:
protecting the habitat and viability of crucial species of flora
and fauna.
• Home to 20 of Madagascar’s lemur species: likely to be the
greatest diversity in a single area.
• The project will reduce deforestation from 2-3,000 hectares
a year to 70 hectares a year.
• Conservation of Madagascar’s only large predator, the
cat-like fossa.
• Forest protection maintains rainfall and water reserves and
protects against soil erosion and sedimentation which
degrades aquatic habitats.
• Improving livelihoods of 50,000+ people in 120 villages.
• Adopting farming practices to improve rice cultivation,
enhance soil fertility, and avoid unsustainable slash and burn.
• Farmers have increased rice productivity three-fold.
• 22 water points/wells and one hydro-agricultural dam
constructed to improve clean water and irrigation for more
than 2,000 households.
• Training to generate new income streams for households:
fish farming, bee keeping, eco-tourism, artisanal craft,
market-based cash cropping.
• Working with national community-focused foundation to
provide low interest loans to local communities to support
‘green’ activities.
• Training local community members to provide council and
advice on general health, first treatment of common illnesses
such as malaria and diarrhoea, family planning and water
hygiene.
• Training and tools for schools on environmental education.
• VCS validated and verified and Gold Level Climate
Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard.
The area
Of any country in Africa, Madagascar contains the greatest
number of total animal species classified as critically
endangered, endangered, or vulnerable, under the International
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the third largest
number of plant species under the same IUCN classifications.2
The Makira forests lie in the north eastern part of country
and provide one of the country’s last great wilderness areas,
representing one of the largest expanses of humid forest left. It
is estimated that more than half of the country’s floral biodiversity
can be found in the Greater Makira/Masoala/Antongil Bay
landscape, making it the richest region in terms of biodiversity.
Makira is home to 20 of Madagascar’s lemur species – likely
the greatest diversity of lemur species existing in a single area.
Lemur species include the critically endangered black and
white ruffed lemur and the critically endangered Silky Sifaka
(one of the 25 most endangered primates in the world). The
Makira project also ensures the conservation of many other
species, including Madagascar’s only large predator, the
cat-like fossa, which requires large areas of intact forest to
maintain healthy populations.
• Estimated to generate 1.3 million emissions reductions
annually.
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Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities, Nature
1
http://www.iucnredlist.org/
2
www.carbonneutral.com
Despite its ecosystem importance, the area has seen an
unsustainable use of resources and forest loss, estimated at
1,500 hectares per year from 1995 to 2005. In the absence of the
project it is projected that these forest loss rates would continue and
increase, but the successful implementation estimates the
deforestation rate will reduce to approximately 70 hectares per year.
The main driver for deforestation in the Makira Project is ‘tavy’, a form
of slash and burn agriculture which is used to cultivate rain-fed rice,
primarily for subsistence needs. Other drivers of deforestation and
degradation include clearing for pastures with fire, and small-scale
illegal logging and mining. These activities are primarily caused by the
open access to forest resources because of insufficient enforcement
of the protection of the area, rapid population growth, low agricultural
productivity, and poverty more generally.
Improving agriculture
and natural resource use
The household economy in the area is almost entirely based on
agriculture, primarily from rice and cash crops. Prior to the project,
farmers were using traditional farming techniques, which proved
labour and capital intensive, yielded low productivity, and degraded
the land beyond the first cycle of slash and burn. The project is
helping households to adopt alternative techniques that replace
these destructive and unsustainable methods. These activities
include: improved intensive rice cultivation, soil fertility enhancement
through composting, and improved crop rotation practices.
As rice is an important staple, improving rice yields is integral to
improving food security. The system of rice intensification includes
techniques that are based on improving water management,
plus weed and pest control. Farmers who have been trained by
the project and have adopted these techniques have already
increased their productivity threefold (from 2 tonnes per hectare in
2007 studies to almost 7 tonnes per hectare from measurements
taken in 2012). The project has seen an annual increase of
15-20% of farmers adopting these new techniques so far.
Water scarcity has been a problem for communities in the area
in terms of both health and agriculture. The project is improving
water infrastructure by constructing community dams, irrigation
channels, and wells and water points. As of December 2013,
22 water points/wells had been constructed and over 2,000
households were benefiting from one hydro-agricultural dam.
Community engagement
and development
The project has also established approximately 20 village tree
nurseries to improve the availability of legal fuel wood for the local
communities and there are plans to distribute efficient cookstoves
and introduce solar cooking and power supplies where appropriate.
In order to reduce the pressures on deforestation, the Makira
project is working in five main areas: transfer of management
of natural resources to communities, community development,
communication and education, ecosystem conservation and
research, and carbon accounting and monitoring.
The goal of the project is to engage with and improve the livelihood
of a population of 50,000+ people living within 120 villages inside
the protection zone around the project area. Local communities
are involved in the negotiations and management of the project
through a network of community associations. Land tenure
security and resource rights for the communities are also improved
through legal land certifications transferred from the national
government.
The community development activities are planned with the
communities in order that they are able to identify and prioritise
their needs. The initial development goals are based on improving
agricultural productivity, creating alternative sustainable livelihoods
and links to new markets, and improving access and quality of
health services and education. The Makira Project has committed
to distributing over 50% of net revenue from carbon sales to the
communities and these activities.
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Biodiversity and
ecosystem conservation
With its important role as one of Madagascar’s last great
wilderness areas, protecting its exceptional biodiversity value
is the Makira project’s key focus. The protection of the forest is
essential to ensuring that the species populations found in the
area are able to survive. Fragmentation of the forest into smaller
patches due to deforestation will limit the viability of the flora and
fauna found there. For instance, lemurs play an important role in seed
dispersal and subsequent natural forest regeneration. The
reduction in their population caused by deforestation also slows
down forest regrowth, thereby exacerbating forest fragmentation
further.
In addition to decreasing habitats, if deforestation were to continue
in the project area, there would be major impacts on the ecosystem
services which deliver benefits to local communities. A healthy
forest has an important role in the water cycle and helps maintain
rainfall and water reserves, particularly important for the local
reliance on rice. Deforestation also exposes fragile topsoil to rainfall
in an already vulnerable area (due to hilly topography), accelerating
erosion and sediment in numerous streams and rivers. Erosion
and sedimentation degrades aquatic habitats, but also leads to
further land conversion as farmers try to compensate for the loss of
irrigated rice fields by moving to new forested areas to use as
cropland.
Ecological monitoring is central to the project’s design and activities,
and includes monitoring of forest habitat loss and fragmentation,
forest corridors and connectivity, and species loss. There is a
particular focus on lemur species populations and forest
carnivores, as they provide a tool for assessing the overall forest
system functionality.
In addition, the project has also initiated a field-based monitoring plan with local community members whereby 4-6 people in
each community site are trained and monitor certain indicators
quarterly, including status of key floral and faunal species and
nature and frequency of pressures and human disturbances.
Creating new income opportunities
The project is also training communities on other activities to
generate revenues for households, including improved fish farming,
bee keeping, eco-tourism, artisanal craft and hostelry, and
market-based cash cropping (vanilla, clove, coffee, cacao). This
includes helping gain greater access to new markets by identifying
and establishing opportunities to sell sustainably produced
natural products, such as certified fair trade biovanilla, bio-clove and
eco-silk.
To help with the development of some of these activities, the
project is working with the Tany Meva Foundation, a national
community-focused foundation, to establish a rural micro-credit
programme that provides low interest loans to communities
exclusively for supporting ‘green’ activities. For example, these
micro-credit loans could be used by farmers to purchase tools
required for improved agriculture techniques or for purchasing
bags for saplings, buying grains, cassava, or other cash crops.
Improving health
services and awareness
Lack of basic health services and malnutrition are the prime causes
of mortality in the region. In collaboration with Population
Services International (PSI) and local representatives of the Ministry
of Health, the project is delivering a programme to improve
knowledge and facilities for basic hygiene, sanitation, good health
practices and disease prevention. As of December 2013, the
project had trained 137 agents from 16 rural communities
to council households on general health, first treatment of
common illnesses such as diarrhoea and malaria, family planning
and water hygiene. Previously this information was unavailable
in such a remote area and by the end of 2013 nearly 6,500
households and 35,000 individuals had benefited from the health
and awareness campaign.
Improving education
and communication
Working with the district-level government education office, the
project has established 22 environmental youth clubs, trained
60 educators in the network of primary schools in the area, and
developed teaching tools to be integrated into the school
curriculum. There are also plans to invest in community
infrastructure, including the development of new schools.
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London T: +44 20 7833 6000 E: [email protected]
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Project partners
The project land is owned by the State of Madagascar, which has
appointed the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to manage the
area and address the deforestation pressures.
WCS
works
with
national
governments,
universities,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and dedicated
individuals to increase understanding and awareness of the
importance of wildlife through the establishment and strengthening
of protected areas. They have been working as a research
organisation in Madagascar since the mid-1980s, including
carrying out biodiversity inventories to establish Makira’s sister
park, Masoala – the largest protected area prior to Makira’s new
protected area designation in 2012.
Location
Mozambique
The Makira Project is located in the Makira forests in
north eastern Madagascar, 40 km west of the town of
Maroantsetra.
Carbon and community monitoring
The Makira REDD+ project is validated and verified to the Verified
Carbon Standard (VCS). In order to generate carbon credits from
its forest protection activities, the project must use regional land
use and deforestation modelling and run a detailed analysis of the
existing forest carbon. Forest cover change is monitored through
periodic assessment of land satellite imagery.
The Makira project area, which is the vast majority of Makira
Natural Park, is 360,000 hectares of dense primary forest. This
is the area which is used for the carbon accounting and sale of
carbon credits. Around that is a ‘protection zone’ of 320,000+
hectares which makes up a buffer area and is where the majority of
the local communities live. The project is estimated to generate on
average 1.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions reductions annually
and more than 38 million tonnes of emission reductions in its 30
year crediting period.
Mazambique
Channel
Indian Ocean
In addition to its VCS validation for carbon accounting, the
project has also achieved Gold Level status under the Climate,
Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standard. To achieve this it
delivers net positive community and biodiversity impacts and
significantly assists communities in adapting to the impacts of
climate change. Impacts are monitored through assessments
of child mortality, literacy and education rates, agricultural
productivity, average household income, and income from new
activities such as bee keeping and fish farming.
The CarbonNeutral Company - the trusted partner for environmental solutions
London T: +44 20 7833 6000 E: [email protected]
New York T: 1-646-367-5800 E: [email protected]
www.carbonneutral.com