This document presents the Environmental and Social Management Framework for the proposed GCF project. The project was designed to support small holder farmers who are living in the climate vulnerable highlands where requires integrated approach to make climate adaptation in the key environmental sectors like Forestry, water and social sectors like plantation, agriculture especially engaging low income communities. The ESMF will provide the platform during the initial and implementation stages of the project to effectively and efficiently manage Environmental and Social issues related to the project and project area. Prior identification of Environmental and Social Risks and measures to mitigate those risks will provide safeguard to the environment, society and the investments of the project.
Tag: environmental management
A brighter future for cocoa farmers: how Vision for Change programme is raising productivity and improving rural livelihoods
This booklet tells the story of the Vision for Change (V4C) project. Supported by Mars Inc. and managed by the World Agroforestry Centre, the project seeks to improve the fortunes of Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa sector. If the country is to retain its status as the world’s leading producer, radical measures are required to increase yields and improve the welfare of the 800,000 farmers who grow the crop. Many orchards are over 30 years old and their yields are a fraction of what they once were. Exhausted soils, poor agricultural practices and a lack of inputs have contributed to poor performance. As a result, many cocoa-growing communities suffer from high levels of poverty. The V4C project is tackling the problem in two ways: by rehabilitating cocoa orchards and by encouraging and supporting community development.
Lessons from two long-term hydrological studies in Kenya and Sri Lanka
The rate and characteristics of land use change in tropical watersheds due to changing demographic, economic and policy factors have important consequences for catchment health and environmental services. Few tropical watershed studies have lasted long enough to facilitate a credible analysis of the long-term effects of land use change on the environmental services provided by watersheds. This paper examines the driving forces and patterns of historical land use change in two long-term watershed studies in Kenya and Sri Lanka and their hydrological impacts. The upper Ewaso Ng’iro north basin is located to the north and west of Mt. Kenya, and has experienced dramatic changes in both land ownership and land use due to rapid population growth of 7–8% per annum. The upper Nilwala basin is located in the south of Sri Lanka and the area has undergone serious deforestation over the last 50 years, for agricultural land uses mainly for tea and home gardens. The loss of watershed functions associated with the impacts of land use change and their socio-economic dimensions are discussed, along with lessons that can be drawn from these studies. These case studies confirm the importance of long-term monitoring of the interaction between land use changes and catchment health. Moreover, the involvement of all stakeholders is crucial for problem identification through to the research and the search for any viable ecological, social and economical solutions. A holistic approach involving relevant disciplines in watershed studies is vital. The paper concludes that use of models that integrate both biophysical and socio-economic data should be encouraged to derive decision support tools for farmers and managers alike who are faced with resolving conflicts and other issues related to limited land and water resources.
A monitoring instrument for resilience
Operationalizing the concept of resilience (i.e. the ability to withstand change, stresses and shocks) poses significant challenges for project managers, particularly when required for performance reporting. This monitoring instrument aims to balance the demands for tracking and reporting changes in resilience with the scarcity of time and information typical of development initiatives. The instrument can be used to inform decisions on program planning and management where the program goal is to enhance the resilience of communities, to better manage ecosystem services, and to create positive and sustainable development impacts.
A pro-growth pathway for reducing net GHG emissions in China
Through a national program that sequesters carbon and reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in rural areas — a rural climate program — China could achieve significant net GHG emission reductions while meeting policy priorities for economic growth, rural development, and environmental sustainability. The program would be an important investment in China’s medium- to longer-term future, and could be funded domestically at relatively low cost through a variety of mechanisms. This paper examines the potential for a rural climate program in China. The paper first provides a detailed description of GHG mitigation options in agriculture and rural energy (Section 1) and carbon sequestration potential in agricultural soils, forests, and rangelands (Section 2). The final two sections (Sections 3 and 4) discuss the scope, financing, and barriers to implementation of a rural climate program in China
Air quality and human health
Dust exposure is thus far little recognized as a threat to the health of people in the drylands of Eastern Africa. Trees planted in the areas of origin of the dust and around human settlements have the potential to reduce exposure to dust, and therefore health gains are possibly achievable through trees. Policies promoting such health gains are currently absent, and this section argues what would need to be done to convince pol – icy makers on the need to invest in trees to improve human health in the drylands of Eastern Africa. Dust also stresses livestock, upon which the nutrition and livelihoods of populations in Eastern Africa’s drylands largely depend hence affecting their health. Exposure to dust is a threat to human health because, when dust is inhaled, it causes a range of respiratory diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia [236]. Dust also impairs visibility for both humans and livestock and is a transportation safety concern. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to the health effects of dust exposure in Africa
Bridging the gap I: policies for reducing emissions from agriculture
Bridging the emissions gap requires a substantial increase in ambition and action, as the previous chapters of this report have illustrated. In 2012, the UNEP Emissions Gap Report (UNEP, 2012) reviewed a number of policies in three sectors – building, transport and forestry – that are proving successful in substantially reducing emissions. In this report we review best-practice policies in agriculture, an often-overlooked emissions-producing sector. The sum of the policies from these different sectors, if replicated and scaled up, shows great potential for narrowing the emissions gapMoreover, in many cases, these policies can help fulfil important national development objectives beyond climate goals as they can, depending on the policy, boost agricultural productivity, save costs of heating homes, promote ecotourism, reduce traffic congestion, abate air pollution and associated adverse health effects, or a combination of these.
Biodiversity and ecosystem services
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, an ecosystem, a biome or the planet. Human societies depend on the supporting services offered by biodiversity because they underpin the supply of provisioning, regulating, cultural and other services. Or as phrased in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [201], “it’s the diversity of biota across the world that underpins the capacity of the world’s ecosystem in providing most of its goods and services.” Drylands are endowed with a rich biodiversity including charismatic wildlife species such as the lion ( Panthera leo ), African elephant ( Loxodonta africana ), leopard ( Pan – thera pardus ) and buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ). While these species attract millions of 79 tourists annually, it is commonly overlooked that drylands host a vast number of trees and shrub species such as acacia and baobab and many of the world’s grasses. Over – all, 10,000 mammals, birds and amphibian species occur in the world’s drylands and the drylands of SSA provide a habitat for 60% of mammal, bird and amphibian species found in that region [202] .
Biodiversity and agricultural sustainagility: from assessment to adaptive management
Rapid changes in land use, food systems, and livelihoods require socialecological systems that keep multiple options open and prepare for future unpredictability. Sustainagility refers to the properties and assets of a system that sustain the ability (agility) of agents to adapt andmeet their needs in newways. In contrast, sustainability tends to invoke persistence along current trajectories, and the resilience to return to current baselines. With three examples, the use and conservation of agrobiodiversity is explored along temporal, spatial, and human institutional scales for its role in sustainagility: first, farmers seed systems; second, complex pollination systems; and third, wildlife conservation in agricultural areas with high poverty. Incentives are necessary if agrobiodiversity is to provide benefits to future generations.
Case study: Huong Khe district, Ha Tinh province, Viet Nam. Characterising agro-ecological zones with local knowledge
Local knowledge and active participation in research is increasingly encouraged, not the least for identifying sustainable adaptation options. However, despite that participatory mapping has advanced from sketches to informing digitalised maps since the 1990s this type of local knowledge is rarely included in agroecological zones (AEZ) mapping. For a new project on climate-smart agriculture and forestry local knowledge was incorporated to characterise agroecological zones in Huong Lien commune, Ha Tinh province, northcentral Viet Nam. The purpose was to determine adaptation options associated with particular agroecological zones. A GIS spatial database with land use, topography, NDVI was generated to derive an agroecological zones map and ground-truthed with the participation of local villagers through transect walks and SWOT analyses by land use type. The study shows that local participation is vital for ground-truthing maps, to fill in gaps when time series data is available and for marking out natural hazard areas. In this particular case, local perceptions of strengths and potential adaptation options associated with particular agroecozones was useful for revealing adaptation gaps. The classification rules for the AEZ need careful consideration, especially when the mapped areas are small, to make the maps useful beyond the study area. This may require more careful transect walks to identify nuances in forest quality for determining forest management. Methodology for inclusive local knowledge needs to be further developed. http://www.worldagroforestry.org/regions/southeast_asia/publications