Manyara Villages eye $1.4 million in carbon trade

 

FARMAFRIC A Communications Officer, Miss Goodness Mrema (Left) talking to journalists around Nou forest recently. (Photo by Charles Ole Ngereza)

By Adams Ihucha; Manyara SIX villages near the sprawling Nou thick forest in northern Tanzania are eyeing the clean air business to rake in funds under a U.N.-backed global carbon-trading scheme. The villages with over 2,141.885 hectares of dense forest have drawn up plans to reap $1.455 million in ten years in exchange for carbon offsets, known as carbon emission reductions (CERs).

Experts say the community forest owned jointly by Dohom, Bermi Bashnet, Long, Qameyu and Endaw villages could offset 24,232 tonnes of CERs annually worth Tsh 233million ($145,392). The village would be earning Tsh 9,000 ($6), by reducing a tonne of carbon dioxide emission, the main agent for global warming. Currently the villagers are finalizing some conditions, ready to generate CER units, tradable in the carbon market under the U.N.'s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme. Babati Rural District Forest Officer, Josiah Manga says that the villages have so far managed to demarcate the community forest borders, registered it and acquired the title deed. Under the technical support of Farm Africa, an international organization, the villages plan to launch a pilot carbon trading project early 2013. “These six villages will borrow a leaf from the nearby Ayasanda Village Forest which has been a carbon trading pilot project under REDD since 2002” Mr Manga explained. Ayasanda miombo woodland forest covering 550 hectares, earns the village Tsh 60 million ($40,000) annually for trading CERs. Bashnet Ward civic leader, Mr Laurence Tara said the goal is to cash in on carbon dioxide that trees store up and, at the same time, to slow down the forest destruction in the area. “The carbon trade would build villagers' trust in forest conservation, if the survival of Manyara's remaining forests may well depend on their efforts” Mr Tara explained. Farm Africa Participatory Forest Management Team leader, Ernest Moshi said the carbon-trading scheme would take off in January 2013. The Farm Africa initiative is to assess the potential for communities to benefit from carbon trading. Members of village forest councils would be trained to measure how much carbon their forests store per year, while continuing to manage their forests sustainably. “We have supported 13 villages in Babati and Mbulu district of Manyara region to form community based forest management and joint forest management” Mr Moshi explained, stressing that in the next phase of the project, they will cover 33 villages. Tanzania Participatory Forest Management Project (TPFMP) Coordinator, Phillip Mbaga said his project pillars are participatory forest management and improving the livelihood of adjacent forest communities through forest based income-generating activities. “We are trying to strike a balance between poverty and conservation because poor people depending immensely on natural resources as the source of their livelihood, so in order to have sustainable conservation, we need to provide alternative sources of income to these people” Mbaga noted.