LAND-USE/LAND-MANAGEMENT

Every year, about 13 million hectares of forest are lost. Why does this matter to a development NGO like CARE?

• First, as much as 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation and forest degradation. The conclusion is as simple as it is inescapable: we will lose the fight against catastrophic climate change if we lose the fight to save our forests.
  
• Second, 80-90% of the world's 1.1 billion poorest people are significantly dependent on forest resources for their survival. Deforestation and forest degradation rob them of assets and diminish ecosystem services that are essential to their fight against poverty.
  
• Third, the processes of deforestation and forest degradation frequently fuel corruption, inequity and conflict. Deforestation and forest degradation also pose substantial health hazards - particularly in the forms of smoke and fire.

As a result, CARE is expanding its work with poor communities and government authorities to improve the management of standing forests. Our multiple-benefits approach is exemplified by the Central Kalimantan Peatlands Project.

But CARE is doing more than just helping people save their forests. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, we are working with communities and governments to actively restore forest assets. For instance, the Mi Bosque project in Guatemala is reintroducing trees in previously denuded agricultural landscapes. In so doing, small-scale farmers are pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in the form of beneficial trees and more fertile soils. These benefits become incentives to safeguard the amount of carbon stored in the land. This has a carbon value that CARE is helping communities cash in to finance conversion and maintenance of land use/land management schemes that:

• Protect water supplies
• Increase the market value of land
• Improve soil fertility
• Increase on-farm incomes and reduce food insecurity
• Provide investment financing for off-farm income generating activities
• Reduce the risk of disasters by providing living storm barriers, etc.

The C3 Initiative

As part of an integrated sustainable agriculture system, agroforestry diversifies the asset-base of poor households and, in so doing, enhances both their income and food security. These systems can also help communities adapt to climate change since carbon rich soils store more water, and trees are less vulnerable to drought, floods and other forms of extreme weather than conventional crops. This method also reverses land and soil degradation while increasing functional biodiversity throughout the landscape.

Financial resources from the world's carbon markets could provide the catalyst to implement these systems on a grand scale. However, this has not yet happened. One of the most formidable obstacles is the complexity and high cost of measuring and monitoring the rate of carbon sequestration - especially when projects are composed of many small farmers. Other significant obstacles include:

• A lack of widespread, basic knowledge about agroforestry systems (making it difficult to select the right mix of species for a particular project)
  
• A lack of widespread, basic knowledge about the economics of agroforestry (particularly in the context of project start-up)
  
• Perverse policies that discourage sustainable land management and agroforestry systems

To overcome these obstacles and release the potential of this “win-win-win" project type, CARE and the World Agroforestry Center are collaborating to design and implement our Carbon, Communities and Conservation (C3) Initiative. This Initiative becomes operational in January 2008.