Project Achievements & Way Forward

Project Achievements

The key successes at the end of our five-year pilot REDD project were:

25,681 hectares of forest brought under community management, and thus protected from degradation by illegal logging and charcoal production.
A more realistic approach to participatory land-use planning in Kilwa District.
Participatory Forest Management (PFM) fully operational with revenue earned from timber sales in 5 villages with 8,118 people. PFM expansion complete in 4 further villages with 9,711 people and revenue generation set to begin in 2015. In villages with PFM completed 85% of households stated they had benefited as a result of the project.
Introduced wide-scale early burning by drip torches to Tanzania, an idea that may now be taken up in the National Fire Strategy.
Supported communities to burn over 6,000 hectares of their forests, reducing forest carbon emissions by an estimated 27,600tC. At a rough market price of $5 per tCO2e, the 27,600tCO2e sequestered are worth almost $140,000, or approximately $22 per person per year in the two villages where the early burning was most successfully conducted. This is approximately $100 per household per year, a not insignificant sum in an area where most households earn less than $1 per day.
Measured forest carbon stocks across Kilwa District (report).
Assessed fire frequency in different strata of forest within Kilwa District, establishing an approach that can be used to derive the forest fire history in other parts of southern Africa.
Designed a method by which communities can monitor for themselves fire frequency and above-ground biomass in forests they manage.
Adapted the GapFire model to serve the purposes of a REDD project.
Compiled a brand new Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology for REDD by fire management in dryland forests, the first such methodology of its kind, and one of the first to use a computer model as the basis for calculating Verified Carbon Units.
Laid a baseline for monitoring the impacts of early burning on avian biodiversity in the forests of central and southern Kilwa.
Improved village governance in project villages, with the frequency of village general assembly meetings increasing from an average of 1.9 to between 3 and 4 per year.
Devised an innovative approach to monitoring the quality of village and forest governance in rural communities.
Established a baseline against which to measure the socio-economic impact at household level of anticipated revenue flows from REDD and other PFM mechanisms.
Assessed the market for carbon offsets from the project, and how to market them in future to get the best possible prices.
Contributed significantly to the evolution of REDD debates and policy formulation within Tanzania.

Way Forward

MCDI initially envisaged selling the first carbon offsets generated by our REDD project within 3-4 years. However, REDD turned out to be even more challenging than first thought. To succeed in selling carbon offsets, MCDI probably needs another 2-3 years of funding to cover the following key steps:

Embed early burning more strongly within the framework of local PFM implementation we have successfully developed.
Develop a simplified calculation that will allow villagers to compute approximate biomass directly from DBH measurements obtained in the field.
Expand carbon density map to neighbouring Palsar scenes in order to include southern and western portions of Nanjirinji A’s VLFR, the biggest VLFR supported by MCDI (61,500ha).
Write a detailed Project Design Document.
Obtain validation to both VCS and Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance Standard.
Enter into three way contracts with communities and Carbon Tanzania for the sale of offsets.
Market offsets to customers prepared to pay a premium price for the strong biodiversity and community development co-benefits associated with the project.

Additional investment would allow MCDI to roll out the project further to achieve the ideal economies of scale for success.