Mai Ndombe REDD+ Community-based Forest Conservation Project
Introduction
ERA has been working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since 2009, drawing on long-standing relationships with Congolese forest management professionals and forest-dependent communities to establish the first REDD+ Conservation Contract in country.
The project area, located on the western shores of Lake Mai Ndombe in Bandundu Province, is an ecologically rich and diverse area which is home to chimpanzees, bonobos and forest elephants. It is also home to nearly 50,000 people living in 30 communities, subsisting mainly on fishing and small-scale agriculture.
Recently, following the signing of the DRC's first Conservation Concession Contract, ERA began an intensive project development phase in the Mai Ndombe project area region that would benefit climate stability, wildlife habitat, and socioeconomic conditions for local stakeholders. The project development phase will culminate in a community-driven REDD+ project, validated to the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) Standard.
Baseline Conditions
The baseline scenario describes the biophysical and socio-economic realities in the project area under 'business as usual' conditions. It takes stock of realities existing before project development and uses this information to make reasonable projections of what conditions would look like moving forward in the absence of the REDD+ project.
Biophysical Baseline Conditions
Prior to being designated as a conservation concession, the two forest concessions which now comprise the REDD+ project area were held as legal logging concessions that were highly valued for the tropical hardwoods, such as wenge, which are found in higher density in these concessions than elsewhere in the Congo Basin. A portion (28,000 ha) of the southernmost concession was logged between 2003 and 2008 until operations were suspended because of an infraction under the Congolese Forestry Code (see 'Legal Status of Project Area' below for details of the suspension).
While legal timber harvesting practices in the DRC do not remove the forest cover entirely, they do damage critical wildlife habitat, non-timber forest products, and carbon stocks. Equally damaging, harvested forests and the logging roads that service them leave new areas of forest exposed and vulnerable to a series of secondary deforestation activities, such as artisanal milling and slash-and-burn agriculture. These activities can completely remove the remaining forest cover in a relatively short time.
Subject to the combined pressures of industrial harvesting and subsequent deforestation activities, the small portion of the Mai Ndombe concessions which has been logged is already undergoing the initial stages of this 'state-change' from forest to non-forest.
Social Baseline Conditions
The forest-dependent communities living inside the project area suffer extreme rural poverty due to decades of civil conflict, economic stagnation, and a nearly complete lack of infrastructure and state capacity, which continues today.
In the Mai Ndombe project area, as with elsewhere in the DRC, local communities have received little or no revenue from the active logging that has taken place on their traditional lands.
Project Structure and Activities
As stewards of the land, the communities living inside the project area will prevent deforestation through a combination of traditional land-use activities, monitoring, reporting and verification, and sustainable agricultural activities funded by carbon revenues. The latter could include intensification and diversification of agriculture, improvement of wood-burning cook stoves, establishment of fuelwood plantations in degraded areas, and other off-farm revenue-generating activities which will be determined and executed through Village-based Stewardship Plans.
The reductions in deforestation and degradation that result from Village-based Stewardship Plans will generate revenue for communities that will also be used for much-needed infrastructure developments in the project area. These developments will be chosen and undertaken in partnership with ERA through Village Stewardship Planning representative committees. In this sense, ERA approaches community stakeholders as partners in the REDD+ project rather than passive beneficiaries.
Legal Status of the Project Area
ERA's Management Rights
In 2008, following a legal review of all DRC National Forest Titles undertaken by the World Bank and the DRC government, the two forest concessions which now constitute the ERA REDD+ project area, then held by the Congolese logging entity Bimpe Agro, were suspended, and re-designated as part of the public permanent production forest domain (Foret de Production). This designation left them available for re-allocation by the Ministry of Environment, Conservation, Nature and Toursim (MECNT) to any private company for wood production.
Although there is a currently a moratorium on the allocation of new forest concessions, the MECNT is able to legally allocate concessions to a logging company during the moratorium, providing it can demonstrate that improved social benefits would result from the logging operation, and cabinet approval has been obtained.
In February of 2010, ERA submitted a formal request to the MECNT to manage the two Mai Ndombe concessions as a community-based conservation area. Because of the region's relative proximity to Kinshasa and its exceptional richness in valuable tropical hardwood, the concessions have been actively sought by logging interests. Nonetheless, the MECNT awarded management rights to ERA, and a Forest Conservation Contract - the first of its kind in the DRC - was signed in August 2011.
Agreements signed between MECNT and ERA grant ERA the rights to develop the REDD+ project in the concession area (with consent from local communities) and to own and sell carbon credits generated from REDD+ activities.
Local Land Rights
While Congolese land tenure law designates the state as the sole owner of all land and subsoil, it also respects customary property ownership and usage rights of local populations. The Congolese Forest Code (under the Land Tenure Act Article 388) stipulates that any concession title holder such as ERA must reach an agreement with local leadership regarding land use in the concession.
In the Mai Ndombe REDD+ project, local communities do not participate in the REDD+ project unless they have given free prior and informed consent (FPIC). Communities do not relinquish customary land rights through participation in the REDD+ project.
Location
The Mai Ndombe Conservation Concession is a -299, 640 hectare area located on the western shore of Lake Mai Ndombe, in the Inongo Territory, District of Lake Mai Ndombe. It extends across the Ntomba, Baselenge, and Bolia sectors.
The ecosystem composition is a mosaic of semi-deciduous forest and swamp forest; however, secondary (disturbed) forest and anthropic grassland savanna constitute approximately 8% of the area.
Standards
The Mai Ndombe REDD+ Forest Conservation Project will be validated to both Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) Standards. ERA began field work in the project area in August 2011 and is in the process of obtaining both VCS and CCBA validations.
Current Status
ERA's intensive project development work in the concession began with the signing of a Forest Conservation Contract which grants ERA the management rights necessary to work in the area. Up until this point, ERA's work in the DRC focused mainly on building relationships with partners in the MECNT and partner NGOs, as well as carrying out initial awareness-raising workshops and consultations in the communities of Mai Ndombe.
Throughout September and October of 2011, ERA continued with awareness-raising and capacity-building workshops in the project area and carried out the data collection work necessary to confirm estimates of carbon volumes and identify high conservation value sites.
The first of the REDD+ carbon-funded infrastructural development projects has already begun; schools are being constructed in four villages inside the concessions.
Please check back often as more information will be provided on an ongoing basis throughout the project's development.