Protecting Forests | We cannot tackle climate change without addressing deforestation.
Tropical forests are the lungs of the earth, regulating life-supporting oxygen levels in the atmosphere. They also provide livelihoods to local communities across the tropics, supplying basic resources, protecting water and soil quality for human agriculture and food production, while also harbouring some of the most biodiverse wildlife on earth.
It is now established that effectively protecting and restoring forests has the potential to deal with 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, thereby significantly mitigating the effects of climate change. Our projects currently protect over 500,000Ha of natural forests in East Africa, preventing the emission of over 200,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.
In Africa, unlike in other parts of the tropics, deforestation is being driven mainly by shifting agriculture. In Tanzania, poorly planned and illegal agriculture is responsible for 80% of forest loss, so our projects are designed to address this threat by empowering communities to enforce their land use plans and defend their land rights.
Indigenous Rights | Local resource-owners must take a lead in conservation.
In Tanzania, many forested areas are home to some of the country’s most marginalised people – communities like the Hadza, the Tatoga and the Masai whose environment is subject to exploitation by migrant farmers and uses that are not allowed under the community created land use plan.
It is only by working with indigenous communities and local government that genuine long-term forest stewardship is possible. By establishing and strengthening land rights and resource tenure over naturally forested areas, our work with indigenous forest communities leads to rural development and secure, improved livelihoods.
We prioritise enabling indigenous communities to secure ownership of their land and provide a means to sustainably manage their forests and resources. By providing indigenous communities with an opportunity to earn an income, often by selling REDD+ carbon offsets, we are able to achieve our aim and stop deforestation while simultaneously supporting the Sustainable Development Goals.
Biodiversity Conservation | Forests are fundamental to our life support system.
Think of a tropical forest and an abundance of life forms spring to mind – trees, ferns, vines, frogs, birds, insects, apes and elephants - in a word, biodiversity. Carbon Tanzania’s work directly protects wildlife-rich forest habitat in areas where communities have historically lacked the ability to realise the value of their natural assets. Moreover, we intentionally focus on habitat connectivity between established national parks and reserves, which results in enhanced outcomes for the conservation of the wider landscape and its wildlife.
Achieving Impacts | Our projects meet 12 out of the 17 SDGs.
Carbon Tanzania’s conservation model offers companies and individuals the ability to do good for planet and people by accounting for their climate-changing GHG emissions. Our forest conservation model leads not only to the protection of important forest areas, but the revenue sharing system ensures that local development needs are also served. We monitor and measure these impacts in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 12 out of 17 of which are delivered by our projects.
We all know that conservation is fundamentally about people – looking after the environment has to make sense to the people living in that environment. The Sustainable Development Goals provide a shared way to understand the impacts of Carbon Tanzania’s work, and by delivering on 12 out of 17 SDG’s our customers know that local development needs are being served.
