Mexico Going Green

Emerging trends in REDD+ and other sustainable practices

When looking at the remarkably complex world of carbon offset, REDD+, sustainable forestry and natural resource management, Mexico is emerging as one of the world’s leading open-air laboratories.

After all, this is a place where the tides of revolution have become institutional realities, where large organizations like the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) are pioneering new ways to bring REDD+ into the mainstream. It is a place with a complex and nuanced socio-economic context, where the poorest 40 per cent of the rural population live on just US$652 a year (despite a national average of nearly US$9000), and where deforestation, vulnerability to climate change and natural resource management issues are making it to the front burner of the national agenda.

With all this in mind – and with an eye on building our collective wisdom that will advance the new Community Forestry Project in the Southern States of Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca – we brought thought leaders from CONAFOR and the Tropical Center for Agricultural Investigation and Education (CATIE) to IFAD headquarters for a meeting tackling contemporary issues on sustainable forestry management. The goal was simple – learn from the lessons of Mexico and see if we can’t apply them elsewhere – the outcomes were far more complex.

What is a REDD+ and how do I get one?
Kicking off the meeting, Bastiaan Louman, Leader of CATIE’s Climate Change Programme, highlighted some key challenges, trends and opportunities for the implementation of REDD+ initiatives. One of the biggest challenges is the lack of clear agreement on how REDD+ should be identified, how it can be implemented on a local scale, and how something originally introduced “as a cheap way to reduce emissions” under the Stern Report some five years ago, is now becoming more nuanced and “not so cheap.”

REDD+ at a glance – “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.” – UN REDD Program

So what are the causes of deforestation? According to Louman, money is key (isn’t it always?). First off, we can use the distance to markets as a good measuring stick for the level of forest degradation. The closer to market the greater the degradation. Or, if you are a glass-half-full kind of guy, the further from the market, the less the degradation.

Migration, access to technology (or lack thereof), land rights and cultural contexts are other key factors. And in many cases, it is a simple question of equity. “If you do not have rights to the land, you are probably not taking care of the forest,” said Bastiaan.

Another key barometer is the level of biomass in any given area. And this is where large institutions like CONAFOR come in handy. With excellent data and a sophisticated inventory of national forestry stocks, CONAFOR is able to provide the baseline data we need to ensure that our carbon-offset efforts are actually creating a positive impact – talk about finally seeing the forest for the trees.

But in the end, it’s possible that REDD+ will fail, especially if we continue to ignore local perceptions, expectations and opportunity costs. The key, says Bastiaan, is looking at other factors like off-farm employment, agricultural prices, road density and local governance for the answers.

This said, the emergence of carbon-markets could very well raise land rents, meaning we need strong organizations, simple monitoring mechanisms and integrated projects that aim at reducing transactional costs, increasing efficiencies and building local access to carbon offset markets. In the end, this will ensure that the little man doesn’t lose out.

So just how much is a forest worth?
The days of high-riding carbon cowboys (dressed in green rather than black) are gone, with carbon offsets dropping from a high of roughly US$20 per tonne to just $2 to $4 per tonne these days. Though some indicators point toward higher prices by the end of the decade, the market remains wildly unstable and needs solid regulation, says Bastiaan. We also need projects that create diverse economic activities that extend beyond the simple pay-to-keep-each-tree-standing model to one that embraces sustainable forestry and land management practices.

This is where projects like the recently signed Community Forestry Development Program come in, says Ladislao Rubio, IFAD’s Country Program Manager for Mexico. The regional context is an important outlying factor in this regards. In Mexico – remember, it’s a place that institutionalized a revolution, witnessed widespread land reform initiatives and yet continues to suffer from eye-popping inequalities – around 80 per cent of the land is held in legally-recognized communal land holdings (ejidos and comunidades). Engaging with the leadership within these communal holdings is key to protecting Mexico’s forests, creating sustainable opportunities within the green spaces, and promoting poverty reduction among the poor rural people. In the end, these are key protectors of Mexico’s biodiversity and forests.

So what is CONAFOR doing to manage Mexico’s forests and mainstream REDD+ initiatives?
Of course, there’s the US$5 million in earmarked grants from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) that are set to be folded into the Community Forestry Development Program and will be a key component of Mexico’s REDD+ strategy in southern Mexico. The new funding is designed to reduce greenhouse emissions and provide project participants with the skills and resources they need to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Aside from that, it’s about strengthening conservation practices, especially within the ejidos and comunidades. According to Salvador Anta Fonseca, Manager of Community Forestry for CONAFOR, Mexico has around 8 million hectares of forests being managed through their institution, there are an additional 13 million hectares of protected areas, and some 2 million hectares of forest with some sort of payment-for-environmental-services system. They are primarily steering funds toward sustainable forest development through the national ProÁrbol program, which leverages public funds to pay for environmental services, value-chain work, education and training, technological development, and conservation and restoration.

Looking at the work of ProÁrbol, it’s easy to see the obvious overlap and synergies with the goals of REDD+. In fact, in November 2009, the Mexican government started work on their new vision for implementing REDD+ goals in Mexico. This work will include tried-and-true methodologies that look at social inclusion and sustainability, also focusing down on creating incentives (both economic and non-economic) to control deforestation and ensure better natural resource management practices in the future. This includes the strengthening of local economies, equitable distribution of benefits and opportunities, reforestation activities and the strengthening of social and productive infrastructure, and work to reduce social conflicts and illegal activities in the nation’s forest areas.

More importantly, most of this work will happen on the ejido (communal level), ensuring that the protectors of our world’s forests have an equitable stake in keeping our planet green.

Tune in with this full-length webcast of the seminar


Read More

CONAFOR PowerPoint Presentation

CATIE PowerPoint Presentation

IFAD signs US$5 million loan for ‘Community Forestry Development’ in Southern Mexico
English | Spanish

http://www.forestsclimatechange.org/index.html

http://www.reddmexico.org/conafor

View photos from our recent mission to Mexico

Forests and Rural Livelihoods: 5 Perspectives

On Friday, March 4, Frances Seymour, Director General of CIFOR, visited IFAD to speak with staff.  ICRAF Director General Dennis Garrity, also in town, joined the discussion as an impromptu special guest, making the ensuing discussion even more rich. Here are

1 - Frances Seymour, Director General, CIFOR: I was in Rome for the first meeting of the CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council, and happily accepted IFAD’s invitation to have a discussion with their staff last Friday.  My objectives were to highlight the contribution of forests to rural livelihoods, present CIFOR’s research programme (in the context of broader partnerships in the new CGIAR), and explore how CIFOR’s research agenda and IFAD’s US$1billion lending portfolio might join forces to the benefit of rural poor people (see my ppt). I provided a sneak peek of upcoming CIFOR research that shows households in forest communities derive on average 24% of their income from forests. This includes wood products, food including fruits, honey, bushmeat and fish, energy and medicinal plants. Beyond those communities, expanding out from every forest’s edge, are communities that depend on the environmental services that forests provide.  Agricultural and rural communities benefit from the climate regulation, water quality and flow regulation, and pollination services (to name just a few) that forests provide.  I see enormous potential for CIFOR-IFAD collaboration to ensure that forests are managed in ways that ensure poor and marginalized people – including women and indigenous peoples – benefit from climate finance and manage the risks and opportunities from other major investments happening now and in the decades to come, including in agriculture, rural infrastructure and governance.  The discussion revealed that helping such people increase their security over forest resources is clearly a common objective.

Nature’s anonymous donor: The hidden contribution of forests to rural livelihoods

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2 - Jesús Quintana, Latin America and Caribbean Region Climate and Environment Specialist, IFAD:   I had the pleasure of following Frances with a presentation of the preliminary outcomes of a recent portfolio review focusing on IFAD and forests (see my ppt). Given IFAD’s focus on managing natural assets – land, water, biodiversity, etc., one could easily argue that forests should be at the core of IFAD’s work. As a matter of fact, they are.  A recent portfolio review undertaken by the Environment and Climate Division showed that nearly 10% of projects included forest activities as part of the pro-poor strategies proposed with smallholder farmers and poor communities alike.  Forest practice in IFAD gravitates around three main areas, (a) community and participatory forestry, (b) agroforestry, and (c) compensating for environmental services generated, which reflect well our approach and priorities. One new area of attention will be value chains, with a view to diversifying production systems and making the whole product cycle more green. A second area of focus will put more emphasis on the interactions between agriculture and forestry, and the third focus area will aim to help rural poor benefit from new climate financing and mechanisms that can provide multiple win benefits.

Quintana presentation ifad cifor 4-3-11

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3 - Francisco Pichón, Country Programme Manager for Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, IFAD:  I moderated a lively discussion that followed the presentations by Frances and Jesus.  I was struck by the multiple functions that forests offer in helping us to tackle poverty reduction as well as the challenges of biodiversity loss, energy and climate change.  REDD+ and forest-based carbon markets may offer co-financing options under IFAD operations for realizing some of that “multiple-benefit” potential, but their success will depend on how these instruments can be integrated into each country’s policies, including how available financial resources are received and distributed among stakeholders at different levels.

Ensuring that the new REDD+ mechanisms not only target deforestation and forest degradation,  but also translate into benefits for poor and vulnerable groups, including Indigenous Peoples and other IFAD target groups, is absolutely vital. For many IFAD target groups, forests are not the only source of livelihood. Therefore, if compensation schemes are to be sustainable, they must respond to community needs and demands in practical ways that include but also look beyond forests.  IFAD can bring value-added to this process through capacity-building and empowerment to enable meaningful participation by marginalized forest-dependent groups and ensure their active engagement in REDD+ processes moving forward. For example, IFAD projects use tools including participatory community mapping for natural resources assessment and management.

4 - Elwyn Grainger-Jones. Director, Environment and Climate Division, IFAD:  We are very grateful to Frances for taking the time to come across town and engage in a great discussion with IFAD staff - it was good to see examples of seeing forests as a part of integrated landscapes.  Rural poor people suffer from the fact that here at the international level we work in “sectoral silos” that too often miss the interactions and complexity that rural poor people face at the community level.  We are working hard to help IFAD’s portfolio become “climate-smart” and “environmentally sound” by highlighting the opportunities to scale up approaches that are integrated at the landscape level, and that do not hinge on “false choices” between economic growth, food security, climate change and environmental sustainability.  A draft ENRM Policy, which embodies these concepts and will guide their implementation here at IFAD, goes to the Board of Directors this May.

5 – Dennis Garrity, Director General, World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF): IFAD has played a major role in the evolution of the New CGIAR, particularly through the leadership of Rodney Cooke (Director, Technical and Advisory Division, Programme Department, IFAD). Thus, it was a real pleasure to join Frances and to be involved in the discussions about the CGIAR Research Programme (CRP) on Forests, Trees, and Agroforestry. I highlighted that food security is indeed a major concern of this CRP, although the links between food and trees are not always obvious to the average observer. Globally, we find that the conversion of natural forest to agricultural land actually has very little aggregate positive effect on food production. This is because the vast majority of land that is now being cleared from forests for agriculture has a low potential for food crop production. But only if we can develop ways to forestall deforestation by linking its protection to generating alternative livelihoods other than low-yield farming, will we succeed in protecting forests in a time of food crisis. I also noted that the agroforestry contribution to the CRP is particularly focused on the role of farm-grown trees in enhancing annual food production through the ecological intensification of agriculture. I referred to the mounting evidence of the enormous potential for the integration of trees into food crop fields of the tropics. For example, in many agroecosystems there is strong evidence that maize, sorghum, millets and other cereals are grown under a full canopy of trees, and that this results in major short and long-term increases in crop yields and sustainability. This is already happening on millions of hectares in West Africa and Southern Africa, and is a process that is now called Evergreen Agriculture. The CRP research aims to investigate Evergreen Agriculture as a vision for transforming tropical agriculture, with enormous implications to address the imperative of enhancing nutrient availability on the 80% of African smallholder farms where mineral fertilizers are not applied. This transformation is all the more urgent in the face of the dramatic increases now occurring in the price of fossil-fuel based nitrogen fertilizers. These systems also enhance long-term soil health toward achieving sustainable agricultural production.

IFAD and forestry – a special relationship

By Jesus Quintana

IFAD works to enable poor rural people to sustainably manage their natural assets to improve their food security and incomes. Given a focus on natural assets – land, water, etc. - one could easily argue that forestry should be at the core of IFAD’s work. As a matter of fact, it is. A recent portfolio review undertaken by the Division I work in (Environment and Climate) showed that nearly 10% of projects included forest activities as part of the pro-poor strategies proposed for smallholder farmers and poor communities alike. Typical forest activities that IFAD finances are community forestry, agroforestry, reforestation and sustainable forest management. And new options, such as carbon forestry and GHG reduction from deforestation and land misuse are now being explored. This is natural because IFAD recognizes that poor communities must be empowered to manage their natural assets, and should also benefit from available climate financing to help them do so.

Forest ecosystems, which cover approximately one-third of the Earth’s surface, deliver a multiple range of goods and services to humans, supporting livelihoods, maintaining essential ecosystem services and regulating the global carbon cycle. Forests are particularly important for the world’s poorest rural people. Over 1.6 billion people, mainly in developing countries, depend on forests for their livelihoods, either as a dominant or supplementary source of cash income and subsistence. Forests are home to nearly 300 million people – and more than 60 million indigenous peoples are wholly dependent on forests for their livings. In addition to the economic value of forests to poor communities, the social and cultural value may be equally important for them.

One reason for the relative invisibility of forests, and forestry in IFAD’s work is the “unnatural” separation between agriculture and forestry as sectors. Their interaction is too often seen (rather simplistically) as conflictive – the story of agricultural lands replacing or encroaching on forests dominates headlines. But this is a failure to appreciate the complexity, richness and complementarity of land uses. Although agricultural practices can of course be detrimental to forests and other natural resources, there is so much more potential to reap benefits from a more healthy relationship between them. Forests, big and small, provide genetic biodiversity and other services – pollination, water quality and flow regulation - that benefit communities and crops alike. Farmers and many other land users rely directly on forests to complement their diet or income, for medicines and also to satisfy social and cultural needs. Farmers across the world successfully combine forests, trees and agriculture in harmonious ways through agroforestry that raises yields without damaging the natural resource base. It’s time the international community recognize that agriculture and forestry are “two sides of the same coin,” and stop separating them.

Celebrating forests for people – International Year of Forests 2011

Because IFAD as a specialized agency, is an United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) member. I represented IFAD in the UNFF9 earlier this month in New York. The UNFF is celebrating the special relationship between people and forests during 2011 through the International Year of Forests. The United Nations General Assembly declared IYF 2011 to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests, and to highlight the dynamic relationship between forests and the people who depend on them, including millions of smallholder farmers.

I co-organized a side-event on agroforestry with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), FAO and the African Forest Forum that highlighted partnership successes in impacting the asset base of poor households with farm-grown trees, enhancing soil fertility and livestock productivity, linking poor households to markets, balancing improved productivity with the sustainable management of natural resources, and maintaining or enhancing the supply of environmental services in agricultural landscapes.

UNFFF9-IFAD agroforestry presentation

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In particular, we emphasized the interconnections between agriculture and forestry, promoting sustainable uses of cropland, pastures and forests through integrated, land-based approaches. Our message: we must invest in these “sustainable agriculture” approaches to improve agricultural productivity while at the same time reducing poverty and improving food security (and also increasing resilience to climate change). And for these impacts to last in the long run, do it without depleting natural resources. We need a new, “evergreen” revolution using agroforestry as a key component globally (along with conservation agriculture, integrated pest management and others).

What’s next?

IFAD will participate actively in the IYF 2011 producing some publications which will analyse the IFAD experience on agriculture-forestry activities, detailing new perspectives and opportunities for IFAD to promote, and benefit from, agroforestry and sustainable forest management.

The UN Forum on Forests Secretariat (UNFF), an intergovernmental policy forum established in 2000 to promote the management, conservation and sustainable use of all types of forests, is the focal point for IYF 2011, in collaboration with Governments, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), major groups and other relevant organisations. The official launch ceremony of the IYF 2011 took place as part of the high level ministerial segment of the 9th session of the UNFF, at UN Headquarters on 2 February 2011.

ICRAF IFAD brochure

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