The Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative : Comic Relief grants

In partnership with the Environment Africa Trust in the UK, MCDI has won two grants from Comic Relief; first a small project development grant, and then, more recently, a much more substantial grant to take the project forward over the next 3 years. Both grants were titled Fair trade for African Blackwood. Their focus is securing a substantial and sustainable income for rural communities in Kilwa through certification of the forests under their management, allowing timber extracted from those forests, and products made from that timber, to be labelled as legally and sustainably felled, and with a fair price paid to the local forest custodians. In this initiative, the particular focus is on the supply of blackwood to the musical instrument market in the UK, Europe and North America.

Research carried out under the first of these grants showed that there is significant latent demand amongst musicians for ethically sourced and made instruments; most musicians reacted extremely favourably when informed of the facts around blackwood exploitation, and were prepared to pay up to 25% more for instruments which did not carry these negative associations. MCDI and its partners also documented the supply chain leading from standing timber to finished instrument, and calculated that with only a small price premium (~5%) to the consumer it should be possible to double the price of standing timber in the forest. Based on this MCDI has projected that community income from selling timber from certified forests could eventually reach $100,000 per year, a 50% increase on existing income from all other sources.

Since there is no Fair Trade (FLO) label for timber products (at least not yet), MCDI has pursued certification by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) which is the global gold standard in forest management. Following a pre-assessment in 2007, MCDI established a group certificate which communities can choose to join, which is easily expandable, and which spreads the cost of certification across all its members. When community income reaches a high-enough level, MCDI expects to begin charging communities for the costs of maintaining the certificate, but for the time being it is bearing that cost. In March 2009 MCP was granted SA-FM/COC-002151, the first FSC certificate for community-managed natural forest in Africa.

Further work will be needed to maintain that certificate over the next few years, including implementing the myriad small changes the FSC auditors requested and recommendations made. A new monitoring system, to track group certificate members compliance with group rules, has been put in place and needs to bed down. Significant attention will also be paid to ensuring communities have the systems in place to ensure benefits from PFM and certification are distributed equitably within the community and so that the scheme delivers maximum benefit. The first commercial harvest of FSC-certified timber from natural forests in Tanzania should take place in May/June 2009, and it is hoped that the first sales of FSC-certified musical instruments will occur by the end of the grant period in mid 2011.