WLT/IUCN-NL training programme

Knowledge exchange and networking for African NGOs: using carbon as a funding mechanism for conservation.

The World Land Trust, in consultation with IUCN-NL, is developing a training programme which aims to help enable our African partner NGOs to benefit from carbon funding opportunities and IUCN-NL’s Ecosystem Grants Programme post 2010.

REDD, or Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, is expected to play a key role in the new global climate treaty to take effect from 2012. Funds are becoming increasingly available for REDD carbon projects but Africa is behind in this opportunity, being involved in less than 16% of projects.

Our objective is to assist our partners through training and networking to access carbon funding, thereby adding to their conservation effectiveness and long term financial sustainability. In doing this we would also be creating a network of stronger African NGOs positioned to profit from carbon opportunities and the EGP on carbon post 2010, spreading the knowledge and capacity to mitigate climate change whilst delivering many other environmental benefits.

The programme is due to start in February 2010 and will include a series of workshops with site visits in West and East Africa.

More information can be found and will be posted on IUCN–NL’s Nature and Poverty portal:
http://www.natureandpoverty.net/carbon-africa/

FACE the Future: 

FACE the future’s focus in our training programme is on reforestation, voluntary carbon markets and certified credits. They have worked for many years in Uganda and along with successes, have also experienced some of the pitfalls of working on carbon projects. They have offered to share their technical expertise and lessons learnt from over 10 years of working with carbon in Africa.

The early experience with forest rehabilitation through planting of indigenous species on Mt Elgon, undertaken by the Uganda Wildlife Authority, was particularly instructive. It attracted criticism for UWA’s uncompromising approach on encroachment issues and there were also allegations that communities were forced off the land and deprived of resources. The underlying issue, perhaps, was a failure to take full account of local communities in project design and participation.

These lessons were learnt, acted upon and rectified. The project owner (Uganda Wildlife Authority) has signed cooperation agreements with communities to manage the boundary together, resulting in access to land and wood. In the future, if the project starts generating carbon credits UWA can share these revenues with the communities. The Face Foundation enabled this by giving back the carbon sequestration rights to the local partner (UWA), thereby Face finished their project activities, although still providing financial support. It also re-organised itself as a totally new entity, Face the Future, developing a new generation of excellent projects founded, among other things, upon the Mt Elgon experience. The capacity to analyse, internalise and adapt accordingly is a crucial part of good project management. This is solid experience, ultimately positive in its outcome, to enrich the training of NGOs that may well face equivalent situations in the future.

Face the future’s environmental mission statement can be found here:
http://www.face-thefuture.com/en/about-us/mission-statement