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COFFEE, CLIMATE CHANGE AND CARBON An Innovative Project on Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee Farms in Mexico Aims to Generate Environmental, Social and Economic Benefits TM 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. TM 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. USA Bolivia Costa Rica Ecuador Ghana Guatemala Indonesia Mexico Nicaragua Peru United Kingdom www.rainforestalliance.org 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