Nhambita Community Carbon Project - Mozambique

The fighting that took place around Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique during the country's 16 year civil war took a terrible toll on both the forests and the communities that had taken refuge in the forests. After the war ended in 1992, those communities continued to suffer. The agriculture had virtually collapsed; there was little or no access to medical help, education, employment, capital or markets.  Food shortages accelerated the spread of disease and malnutrition.

Envirotrade joined up with the European Commission, the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management to help rebuild the local economy by establishing environmentally responsible farming and food production in a pilot 35,000 hectare area in the buffer zone around the park.  Land-use change in the buffer zone of the protected area takes pressure of threatened natural resources and assists the rehabilitation of the park.  The project works with communities to rehabilitate the forests on their land and introduce new, sustainable farming practices, such as planting new crops alongside nitrogen-fixing trees.  These new practices have had a dramatic effect on the yields of cash crops such as cashews and fruits, and now provide healthy livelihoods for around 1000 families.  Hundreds of other farmers have become the contracted guardians of new forests using the Plan Vivo system and receiving an income from the sale of carbon offsets by Envirotrade.

Carbon finance has brought food security and economic development on an unprecedented scale.  The reforestation of communal lands has helped to raise money for community projects such as schools and other businesses, such as honey production, poultry farming and furniture-making, have established themselves with the support of carbon sales and grant aid from the European Commission.  Lives and land have been transformed.  Now, having brought about the rehabilitation and management of 35,000 hectares of community forest, the Envirotrade model is being adopted by communities in three other parts of the Gorongosa buffer zone.

The Zambezi Delta Carbon Livelihoods Project

The Delta of the Zambezi River in Mozambique is an extensive swamp that forms a triangle of around 12,000 Km2. It starts in the confluence of the Zambezi and Shire rivers and extends 120 Km down to the Indian Ocean . It also extends 200 Km along the coastline, is limited by the Morrumbala escarpment in the North West while at south it includes the extensive Cheringoma escarpment. To the south-east, the Delta includes the two Forest Reserves – Nhampakué and Inhamitanga and is mostly made of the “Marromeu Complex”, a 6,880 Km2 Ramsar site that includes the Special Buffalo Reserve of Marromeu.

A grouping of governmental, non-governmental and other institutions led by WWF and the Mozambique Government have joined together to develop a co-ordinated response to the considerable environmental threats that face the Delta and its people. Poverty and environmental degradation in the Delta is a strategic issue for Mozambique because of the links to the hydro-electric generation project at Cahora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi River and the survival of Mozambique 's strategic prawn industry along the coast. Envirotrade is collaborating with partners in this area to address poverty and unsustainable resource utilisation in the communities surrounding the Nhampakué and Inhamitanga Forest Reserves in the Marromeu Complex through its Carbon Livelihoods Programme. This programme has been successful in bringing significant revenue from the sale from carbon offsets to the Nhambita community in the buffer zone of the nearby Gorongosa National Park who is engaged in Land Use, Land Use Change Forestry (LULUCF) activities.

The project is establishing local nurseries for the propagation of indigenous trees for reforestation and forest rehabilitation, fruit and other agroforestry activities and deploying extension staff to transform agricultural practices amongst communities practising slash and burn agriculture. Envirotrade and local communities are introducing a forest management programme for community forests to assist conservation and a fire management programme to ensure regeneration of forest and a decrease in burning in the affected areas. The Envirotrade Carbon Livelihoods Programme will bring revenues from the sale of carbon offsets to both individual participants in the project in annual payments and to a community trust fund that will finance the development of infrastructure in the community such as schools and health posts and will continue to fund extension support for agriculture and pay for fire management activities over an extended period of time. Conservation of the neighbouring Nhampakué and Inhamitanga Forest Reserves and the Special Buffalo Reserve of Marromeu is directly linked to the development of sustainable resource management in the communities living around them. The Carbon Livelihoods Programme will play an important role in conserving these resources.

The Quirimbas Carbon Livelihoods Project

The Quirimbas Carbon Livelihoods Programme (QCLP) is located in the Quirimbas National Park located in the six central districts of the Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique and encompasses an area of approximately 7506 square kilometres, 5984 on the continent and 1522 being ocean, intertidal, and island habitats. The National Park was recently formed as an initiative of the 40 villages in the Park and the Mozambique government supported by WWF. The park is the largest marine protected area in Africa , the first to be declared in post-independence Mozambique , and significantly, the first park in Africa to be created at the request of local inhabitants. The marine part of the Park includes the 11 southernmost islands of the Quirimba Archipelago, of which four (Ibo, Matemo, Quisiwe, and Quirimba) have a long history of permanent human occupation. A managed ‘elephant corridor' will in time connect this part of the park to the Niassa Reserve to the north.

The QCLP is located inside the boundaries of the national park and will target agricultural communities in the Macomia, Quissanga and Meluca districts of the National Park. Some 95 000 people currently reside in the park and 30 000 in the buffer zone. The large population in the park poses significant challenges to the management of resources and poverty and environmental degradation threaten this unique habitat. Forest management and conservation of soils and river catchment areas is essential to ensure the survival of fragile marine environments including the corral reefs in the national park. The QCLP is working with the park authorities and selected communities in vulnerable and threatened areas of the park is to develop forestry and land use practices that promote sustainable rural livelihoods in a way that raises living standards through the generation and sale of verifiable carbon emission reductions. The project has three main components: the promotion of sustainable land use through agroforestry, forest and fire management and effective use of non-timber forest products to generate co-benefits for the communities participating. Animal/human conflict is a significant problem in the park and impacts on livelihoods, the project will address this problem and bring much needed resources from carbon revenues to assist in this. The project will also work closely with the management of the QNP and WWF to conserve bio-diversity and implement the park management plans.

The project will generate verifiable carbon emission reductions using the Plan Vivo methodology and Envirotrade market the offsets to buyers who wish to invest in poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation in Mozambique . Project activities are aimed at developing sustainable land use practices with the targeted communities to provide socio-economic benefits (transform livelihoods) and protect and restore forest resources in the national park. This will involve the restoration of degraded areas in the park that were previously cultivated and are now abandoned or areas that have been illegally logged, an extensive agroforestry programme to stabilise shifting agriculture and assist farmers, the production and marketing of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and sustainable community timber utilisation in designated areas.

The project will also build institutional capacity in communities including the establishment of trust funds to channel funds from the sale of carbon offsets to individual farmers participating in the project and communities who contribute to forest rehabilitation, management and fire control. These community structures will be supported by institutional and administrative capacity to enable the Plan Vivo methodology to be implemented and ensure that carbon assets are maintained in a credible registry that promotes transparency, accountability and confidence in both producers and purchasers of offsets.