Impact Stories

What It Takes, Part IV: Sharing Benefits from Carbon

Sep 13 2012 - 4:11pm

Fourth and last installment in a series of stories about benefit sharing Villagers in Uganda are paid to plant trees to offset carbon emissions Project: Trees for Global Benefits Program (TFGB) Country: Uganda Type: Subnational level PES External Funder: Carbon offset purchasers abroad, funded through Ecotrust, a national NGO Facilitator: None Implementing-Monitoring Agency: Ecotrust Other Parties: World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF); the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Management Community Stakeholders: approximately 400 tree growers in four villages; the...

What It Takes, Part III: Sharing Revenues from Conservation

Sep 11 2012 - 5:47pm

This example is the third in a series of stories about benefit sharing. Villagers trade crop harvest for share in park proceeds in Zanzibar, Tanzania Project: Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park Location: Zanzibar, Tanzania Type: Sub-national level CBNRM External Partners: Government of Zanzibar through DCCFF Facilitator/Implementing-Monitoring Agency: Originally, CARE International; now none Other Parties: Farmers’ and village councils, farmers’ association, and Community Development Fund Community Stakeholders: 9 local villages (about 14,000...

What It Takes, Part II: Selling Environmental Services

Sep 6 2012 - 9:43am

In our second of four benefit sharing examples, we look at: Farmers who benefit by providing water to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Project: Equitable Payments for Watershed Services (EPWS) Location: Morogoro, Tanzania Type: Payment for Ecosystem Services External Funder: Dawasco (a utility company) Facilitator/Implementing-Monitoring Agency: CARE Tanzania and WWF Other Parties: Local government; university that provides training Community Stakeholders: 144 local farmers in four villages In the Morogoro region of Tanzania, the rugged...

What It Takes

Sep 5 2012 - 5:34pm

The idea that people need to be motivated to protect and invest in their forests raises many questions related to fair and appropriate benefit sharing. Benefit Sharing was the subject of a Knowledge Cafe Monday September 10, at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Jeju. It will also be discussed during World Forest Week in Rome later in the month. In the meantime, we reproduce here, in four installments, summaries of benefit sharing cases, excerpted from the overview of Making Benefit Sharing Work for Forest Dependent Communities, that shed some light on "what it takes." Sharing...

Benefit Sharing for REDD+: Questions countries are asking

Jul 20 2012 - 4:36pm

Contributed by Neeta Hooda, Senior Carbon Finance Specialist at the World Bank The concept of REDD+ is based on the idea of paying tropical countries or communities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and to conserve, sustainably manage, and enhance forest carbon stocks. However the modalities for determining “who gets what” are still unclear. The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), a global partnership based at the World Bank, recently organized three knowledge exchange sessions, held in a videoconferencing format, for...

Land -- where food, energy and environmental security collide

Jul 3 2012 - 2:52pm

More than 50% of the 1998-2008 deforestation was due to agricultural expansion...40% of US corn went to ethanol last year...50% of Argentina's agricultural land is used to grow soy...Deforestation threatens the ability of forests to store about 40 years' worth of fossil fuel emissions. The numbers are dizzying but the trends are clear: the planet is heading toward a major collision of interests as growing food, energy and climate security needs exert mounting pressure on land and water resources, while displacing local farmers and forest-dwellers. PROFOR hosted a lunch-time seminar at...

The Journey of Forest Governance

Jun 25 2012 - 3:23pm

Submitted by Nalin Kishor, Senior Natural Resources Economist, PROFOR When I started working on forest governance issues, back in the late 1990s, you could talk about governance and corruption issues only in hushed tones. Since then, through a series of global efforts, we have progressed to a point where the state of forest governance can be openly debated at public conferences. Lack of good governance is now seen as a core development issue. More recently we have begun to measure the quality of forest governance by blending factual and perception-based information, gathered through multi-...

Finding Balance: Our future, our forests

Jun 25 2012 - 11:38am

The United Nations Forum on Forests partnered with a multimedia firm to produce a compelling story line about forests that goes beyond simple conservation. Combing through 10,000 photographs and dozens of hours of footage (much of it drawn from last year's International Forest Film Festival), they set out to communicate the difficult balance between livelihoods, economic growth and environmental goals that sustainable development seeks to achieve. Take a look -- the photography, for starters, is stunning. Narration is provided by Jan McAlpine, Head of UNFF, with contributions from...

Forests: What's Up in Rio?

Jun 20 2012 - 11:30am

The draft Rio+20 Declaration presented to world leaders today includes four paragraphs [193-196] on forests that stress the importance of sustainable forest management in meeting "many of the most pressing sustainable development challenges." An unwieldy paragraph 61 also recognizes that "urgent action" is needed on "promoting conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems, regeneration of natural resources, and the promotion of sustained, inclusive and equitable global growth." (Read The Guardian's copy of the document). Bonn Challenge While...

What experts mean by "SFM"

Jun 5 2012 - 11:28am

An effort by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests to clarify the concept of Sustainable Forest Management, or SFM, has yielded 8 accessible, well-documented, and concise fact sheets. Use these as reference material on the multiple functions of forests, primary forests, food security and livelihoods, indigenous peoples, REDD+, biodiversity, gender and adaptation to climate change. Or simply to challenge your knowledge and appreciation for the roles forests play. For example, did you know that there is the equivalent of only one football field of forest area available per person...

You are here