Project Updates
Avoided Deforestation in the Yaeda Valley
This project improves the livelihoods of hunter-gatherer Hadzabe and pastoralist communities in Mongo Wa Mono and Domanga villages, Northern Tanzania. By working in conjunction with traditional leaders, the elected village governments and a team of community members, Carbon Tanzania (CT) and Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) aim to establish a system of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) from avoided deforestation which will strengthen land tenure, management capacity and local natural resource management, enhance and diversify local incomes, and contribute to local, national and global environmental conservation aims. Successful avoided deforestation will be achieved through a series of interventions including reinforcing the implementation of the approved village land use plan and associated village by-laws, improving forest conservation and management activities and addressing the primary driver of deforestation, slash and burn agriculture.
This project is currently ungergoing certification with the Plan Vivo Foundation. Read our Project Idea Note.
Pilot Initiative in Kilwa District
Carbon Tanzania has partnered with a group of leading organizations and research institutions in a four-year pilot initiative. The project, which is funded by the Norwegian government’s Climate Forestry Initiative to the tune of over $1.7 million from 2010-2013, is led by the Mpingo Conservation Development Initiative (MCDI).
MCDI has been working in Kilwa since 2004 to facilitate establishment of Village Land Forest Reserves and development of methods for sustainable harvesting of high-value timber species in communally managed forests. In 2009, MCDI was awarded the first certificate from the global Forest Stewardship Council for community-managed indigenous forests in Africa. This will enable villages to capture premium prices for sustainably harvested timber species such as Mpingo (Dalbergia melanoxylon) in their communal forest reserves. A central element of this project will be integrating new forms of income captured through global carbon markets established under REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) with existing community-based forest management and forestry certification schemes.
The project will aim to enable MCDI to expand their activities in Kilwa using revenue captured from generation of carbon offsets in communal forests. Forests in the area are a mosaic of Miombo woodlands (Bracystegia sp.) and patches of high-biodiversity coastal forest. Forest-dependent birds are found in some of these forests, and are used by MCDI as ecological monitoring indicators, and parts of Kilwa District adjoin to the Selous Game Reserve and host large mammals such as elephants, buffalo, and lions.
The project aims to generate 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) over its four-year duration. These offsets will be generated based on the highest scientific standards and will be validated and verified under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance (CCB) Standards. Carbon Tanzania will be responsible for marketing these offsets on both local and global markets and capturing the best possible price for local producers.
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