Download RA Overview E - Rainforest Alliance

COFFEE,
CLIMATE
CHANGE
AND
CARBON
An Innovative Project on Rainforest
Alliance Certified Coffee Farms in Mexico
Aims to Generate Environmental,
Social and Economic Benefits
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When it comes to dealing with the impacts of
climate change, the world’s farmers are on the
front lines. From extreme weather shifts to serious
water shortages, they are being faced with increasing challenges. And at the same time that farmers
are coping with the vagaries of the climate, it’s
also incumbent upon them not to contribute to
deforestation or greenhouse gas emissions.
In an effort to help coffee farmers conserve their forest
landscapes, reduce emissions and receive payments for
the climate services provided by their sustainably
managed farms, the Rainforest Alliance has teamed up
with local partners in Mexico as well as a coffee-industry
leader on an innovative reforestation project in the state
of Oaxaca.
Building on the Success of Certification
With guidance from the Oaxacan organization Unidad
Ecológica para el Sector Café Oaxaqueño (UNECAFE), a
group of over 400 smallholder coffee farmers in Oaxaca’s
coastal region is developing a reforestation project that
aims to generate carbon credits. All participating farms
are Rainforest Alliance Certified , signifying that they
have met the standards of the Sustainable Agriculture
Network (SAN), the nonprofit coalition that manages
Rainforest Alliance certification.
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Covering a total project area of 1,100 hectares (2,718
acres), the participating farms are located in the indigenous regions of Chatina and Zapoteca, specifically within
the communities of Santa Lucía Teotepec, San Juan
Lachao Nuevo, Santa Rosa de Lima and Soledad Piedra
Larga — which are among Mexico’s poorest.
The Rainforest
Alliance works
to conserve
biodiversity and
ensure sustainable
livelihoods by
transforming
land-use practices,
business practices
and consumer
behavior.
www.rainforestalliance.org
As part of the initiative, UNECAFE, Pronatura Sur (a
Chiapas-based conservation group and SAN member) and
Agroindustrias Unidas de México or AMSA (a subsidiary
of ECOM Agroindustrial Corporation, the third-largest
coffee-trading company in the world) are working with
these Oaxacan communities to conduct reforestation
activities and monitor carbon sequestration on their land.
The project’s organizing framework builds on the established strengths of certification, but it will go above and
beyond the already significant efforts made by these
Rainforest Alliance Certified farms to curb deforestation
and mitigate climate change. Participating farmers will
plant fruit and timber trees to create live fences, reforest
degraded pastureland and increase the percentage of
Community technicians in training.
their production area that is devoted to shade-grown
coffee — transitioning away from a full-sun approach, a
monoculture system that requires the intensive use of
agrochemicals.
Following established guidelines for the development of
carbon coffee projects, farmers will also learn how to
implement a carbon-accounting methodology to measure
the amount of carbon sequestered by their newly planted
trees, which should reach an estimated 100,000 metric
tons of CO2 over the project’s 25-year lifespan.
Additionally, farmers will manage the verification and sale
of carbon credits generated by their reforestation work.
As of August 2011, the local project partners and the participating farmers are developing the project design document (PDD) and preparing for its implementation. Once
the PDD is finalized, the Rainforest Alliance will determine
if it has earned validation according to the Verified Carbon
Standard (a benchmark to ensure that the credits bought
by businesses and consumers result in tangible and
permanent emissions reductions) as well as the Climate,
Community and Biodiversity Standards (which gauge a
project’s potential to generate social and environmental
benefits). Down the road, on-site verification audits will
likely be carried out in conjunction with Rainforest
Alliance certification farm audits, a combination that could
increase efficiency and reduce costs — another benefit of
implementing carbon projects on certified farms.
Good For One and All
All too often, debates about environmental problems are
framed by a zero-sum point of view, but a project like this
one proves that it’s possible to mitigate climate change in
a way that benefits farmers, rural communities, regional
ecosystems and the global climate, simultaneously.
Through reforestation, the participating farmers hope to
earn revenue for sequestering carbon by selling credits to
individuals or businesses that cannot avoid generating
greenhouse gas emissions. And the training that community members will receive — some will learn about tree
planting and maintenance while others will be taught to
monitor tree growth — will enable them to better understand the true value of their natural resources. “The
project will help the community build its technical and
organizational expertise,” says Pronatura Sur’s José
Guadalupe Pérez Gómez.
When it comes to the environment, the project’s impact
on regional ecosystems could be just as significant as its
effect on the global climate. By planting trees, farmers
will increase wildlife habitat, help maintain soil fertility,
protect water sources and conserve Oaxaca’s forest
landscape for years to come.
Photos: Pronatura Sur
In local workshops, community members identify the many
environmental services their forestlands provide.
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And on the economic side, farmers will diversify their
incomes while AMSA strengthens its bond with suppliers
and helps farmers improve their livelihoods — which
could earn the company positive recognition for its
commitment to social and environmental responsibility.
The project could also serve as a model for how food and
beverage companies can partner with their suppliers to
mitigate climate change, offering companies the opportunity to source both carbon credits and coffee (or other
tropical crops) from the same farms.
A Local Project With Global Potential
Guided by the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change — the body that coordinates international efforts to address global climate change — Mexico,
like a growing number of tropical countries, is developing
a national strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
caused by deforestation and degradation. As part of this
strategy, the government plans to provide incentives for
projects that aim to conserve forestland and generate
climate benefits from well-managed and protected forests
Local partners host workshops with farmers
and fellow community members.
and agricultural lands. A project like this one would benefit from such a strategy.
In the interim, as voluntary carbon markets continue to
grow, there will be more opportunities for farmers and
other land managers to reap the rewards from these
kinds of initiatives. But as this project demonstrates,
small farmers need significant training and assistance
from organizations such as the Rainforest Alliance and
Pronatura Sur in order to make the most of these opportunities and improve their livelihoods.
By building on voluntary certification and using the
framework it provides to help small farmers access
carbon markets, the Oaxaca project can be scaled to suit
a range of farms around the world. “The combination of
certified coffee and carbon can be replicated in other
countries as well as by producers of other crops,” says
Jeff Hayward, director of the Rainforest Alliance’s climate
program. “Our hope is to see, for example, cocoa farmers
in Ghana adapting their own projects.” When properly
implemented, carbon financing offers a promising new
way to reward communities for forest conservation and
sustainable land management.
PROJECT PARTNERS
Agroindustrias Unidas de México S.A. de C.V., a subsidiary
of ECOM Trading Corporation — which purchases coffee from
participating farms — is supporting the initial stages of the
project’s development.
Pronatura Sur, a conservation organization and SAN member
based in Chiapas, Mexico, is providing technical assistance
and sharing with farmers its expertise on carbon project
design, implementation and monitoring. Contact: José
Guadalupe Pérez Gómez, [email protected]
The Rainforest Alliance is the SAN certifier of the farms
participating in the project and will conduct an independent
third-party assessment of the project’s conformance with
voluntary carbon standards. Contact: [email protected]
Unidad Ecológica para el Sector Café Oaxaqueño (UNECAFE)
is coordinating the initiative, training participating farmers,
monitoring project activities and managing implementation
costs. Contact: [email protected]
For more information about the Rainforest Alliance’s climate program,
please visit www.rainforest-alliance.org/climate
665 Broadway, Suite 500 • New York, NY 10012-2331 • Tel: 212/677-1900 • Fax: 212/677-2187