A rural Ethiopian village has been fighting climate change with the low tech, innovative practice of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, creating new jobs and sources of funding for local businesses.
The woreda or district of Humbo liesabout 420 kilometres southwest of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. A rise of lush green mountains looming over an expansive plain, the area, flawless in its beauty and full of fresh air, appears almost untouched since prehistoric times. However, just 10 years ago, the area looked completely different. Threatened by desertification and devoid of trees after years of deforestation, Humbo’s hillsides, which suffered from massive erosion and decreased agricultural productivity due to nutrient loss from soil run off, looked like the scarred surface of another planet.
Desertification is a major problem in parts of Ethiopia, as it is across many parts of the African continent. As the impacts of global climate change become more pronounced, each year African countries that incorporate or border the vast Sahara loose more and more arable land to an ever-encroaching desert. Growing populations require more land to support agriculture, which leads to the cutting down of large tracts of forest that could act as a bulwark against desertification. Though the country’s government boasts of restoring the country’s forest coverage to a little over 10 percent, some reports suggest that Ethiopia has under 3 percent of its native forest cover, while over 70 percent of its land is threatened by desertification. Deforestation also exacerbates drought and flooding by reducing the land’s ability to absorb water. The result is increasingly vicious cycles of unpredictable flooding and drought which further hamper local crop production and increase food insecurity.
For Ergana Soresa, a local farmer, and many of the other residents in the Humbo woreda, the economic consequences of environmental degradation are real. Humbo recorded just over 125,000 inhabitants in its most recent census, over 85 percent of which live in poverty. Soresa remembers clearly the 2006 rainy season, when a flood wiped out crops on his farmland and destroyed his house. “I lost many of my belongings and it took me several years to get back on my feet,” Ergana said. Across Humbo, even nine years later, it is still possible to see large rock and silt deposits pushed down the mountain from the flooding. It is highly likely that there would have been less damage had more of the area’s original vegetation remained intact.
Today, Ergana and other members of his community call such threats history because of forest restoration work they have conducted over the last nine years in conjunction with the international NGO, World Vision, and the World Bank. The environmental conservation effort has even created additional income sources through the sale of carbon credits that the community has used to finance other business ventures. Ergana and the other 903 people in his vicinity have created a cooperative that conducts Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), or the restoration of clear-cut original growth local vegetation on depleted forest land. Their efforts aim to organize seven different village cooperatives to regenerate 2,728 hectares of land in the Humbo woreda.
FMNR was developed by an Australian agronomist and World Vision Senior Advisor, Tony Rinaudo, who spent the early part of his career working for the NGO Mardi International, combating desertification in Niger Republic’s harsh climates by planting imported saplings from more temperate regions. “I spent 17 years in Niger Republic, where tree planting is very costly and has a very low success rate. While there I realised that vast, seemingly treeless tracts of land in fact conceal an ‘underground forest’,” he said over email. According to Rinaudo, forests that have been cut down leave root stumps and even seeds stored in the soil, many of which possess the capacity to grow into large trees. In a November 2014 interview with the Australian Broad Casting Corporation (ABC), Rinaudo explained that this simple practice, which requires nothing more than a knife to prune existing vegetation to allow for rapid growth, has resulted in the reclamation of five million hectares of previously desertified land in Niger. “The beauty of it is the very poorest people can do this without World Vision or another organisation providing any tools or any inputs from outside,” Rinaudo told the ABC. Though it was initially difficult to convince people to adopt FMNR in many African countries, the practice has increased in popularity. Currently, millions of hectares of old farmland across Africa have been recovered with forests through FMNR. Experts consider the practice’s simplicity, low cost and early returns as a major contributor to its success. Rinaudo was also involved in designing the Humbo project. “I first visited Humbo in 1999 and was saddened to see the deforested hills,” he said. “And yet, it was very obvious to me that the majority of the ‘bushes’ growing on the hills were in fact stems growing from tree stumps.”
The area of Humbo designated for the FMNR work is fenced in by thorny plants to prevent animals from eating the vegetation. The undisturbed trees and grass grow rapidly, providing cheap fodder for cattle. Of all the FMNR work on the 2,728 hectares of land in Humbo, only 243 hectares is covered by trees planted by the farmers. The rest was regenerated by protecting specific areas from human and animal interventions. But perhaps the most innovative aspect of the project, which started in 2006 as a collaboration between the Ethiopian Government, the local community, World Vision and the World Bank, is the sale and trade of carbon credits as a result of the green house gasses sequestered by the increased vegetation.
Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce harmful emissions that contribute to climate change, mechanisms were established to provide countries with an economic benefit for activities that reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere. Forests act as carbon sinks that suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forest developers can earn carbon credits for each ton of carbon dioxide equivalent “sequestered” or absorbed by their forest. These credits can then be exchanged for cash. In Humbo there are 85 identified spots where samples are being taken to measure the level of carbon sequestering. “We measure the height and width of trees found in these 85 spots. After measuring all trees in the spot areas we know their carbon volume. These sample volumes scientifically show the carbon sequestering level of the whole 2,728 hectares,” said Demess Lemma, forestry expert and FMNR projects officer at World Vision Ethiopia. “Nature is copious. She gives you back, if you give her.”
Humbo’s FMNR work is similar to projects in China and Moldova which seek to involve communities in carbon sequestration and credit trading. Thus far, carbon trading has generated $383,514 for seven village cooperatives involved in the project. Beyene Agebo is the chairman of one of the cooperative associations. Carbon sales have brought his association $112,050. The association gives credit for its members at an interest rate of 10 percent to buy agricultural inputs. “Previously there were no flour mills in our vicinity and women had to walk for four Despite substantial gains in protecting existing forests andregenerating damaged original plant life, deforestation in developing countries still occurs at an alarming rate. According to a recent study by University of Maryland geographer, Do Hyung Kim, the rate of deforestation across the globe has actually increased over the last 10 years.
Humbo locals, however, are reaping the economic benefits of their new environmentalism with the lives of many farmers such as Soresa and Agebo changing dramatically for the better. More land has been set aside for FMNR work and even more businesses are slated to receive money generated by carbon sequestration. “Our lives have been changed because of this project. At first the idea of selling air made us laugh,” Agebo said.
Rinaduo believes that, through managing natural regeneration, farmers can control their own resources without depending on externally funded projects or needing to buy expensive inputs (seed, fertilisers, nursery supplies) from suppliers. Its beauty lies in its simplicity and accessibility to even the poorest farmers. Once it has been accepted, it takes on a life of its own, spreading from farmer to farmer by word of mouth, according to Rinaduo. hours to get to a flour mill,” Agebo said. “However, as the result of two flour mills built by our association, this has become history.” In addition, the cooperative associations have built seven grain stores to store excess harvest for sale. Beyene’s association also has plans to buy a bus for residents of the area who must walk for more than four hours to get to the nearest town. Furthermore, the association has created job opportunities for 15 people, with other residents employed as accountants, cashiers and guards.
The project, which was initially funded with $443,906 from World Vision Australia and $50, 000 from the World Bank, will collaborate with the World Bank’s carbon fund to sell 165,000 tons of carbon at an average price of $4.40 per ton until the end of its first phase in 2017. Humbo’s farmers expect to see at least $726,000 over the duration of the project, which is expected to sequester more than 800,000 tons of carbon over its 30-year lifetime.
According to World Vision, Ethiopia’s government has taken note of Humbo’s success with FMNR and called for a scale up to 15 million hectares of land. At the 2007 Global Change summit in Washington DC, the late Ethiopian Prime, Minister Meles Zenawi, strongly emphasised carbon sequestration as a means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. The Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity estimates the country has the potential to generate $3.3 billion annually from carbon sequestration through regenerated forests.
