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Colombia San Nicolás Agroforestry
Biodiversity
Biodiversity will mainly benefit from the forestry activities of the project. The replanting will also extend the forested land area, enrich the degraded natural forests with valuable species for the biodiversity, and help interconnect the existing natural forests fragments and restore the biological corridors. The project will also support the establishment of several types of agroforestry and silvopastoral systems according to the land considered, which will include fruit-bearing trees, forest species, other timber species and transitory crops or a combination of them. These activities will develop in small areas, due to the regional situation. They will therefore not have a major impact on biodiversity. The implementation of a wide range of systems involving many tree species will nevertheless increase the tree cover on abandoned pastures and create a more diverse scenery that will generate ecological specific niches.
Finally, good forest practices will be promoted, which will improve the sustainability and longevity of reforested areas and will for example include such practices as the maintenance of natural forest corridors in plantations for the prevention of forest pests. Seeds for native species will be partly purchased from certified seedling stores, and partly obtained from seedling banks developed by CORNARE, which will avoid any harm to remnant natural forests and ensure enough genetic diversity.
Other Environmental Benefits and Risks
In addition to increasing the natural diversity and rehabilitating abandoned pastures, the establishment of these permanent systems and forests will bring several other environmental benefits, among which: protection of the soils and reduction of the erosion process which particularly threatens areas of steep slope in the zone and has taken away most of the superficial arable layer; improvement of the landslide prevention and control through fixation of the soil; better retention and increment of water flows through the improvement of the soil filtration and retention capacities, which will also lead to the restoration of hydrographic basins; supply of firewood and timber products for different uses in a sustainable manner, which will also reduce pressure on native forests; and improvement of landscape beauty.
Although the analysis of the potential environmental impacts conducted by the project team didn't identify any significant negative impact, a set of criteria and indicators was developed in the monitoring plan to monitor potential environmental impacts in the project area. They cover both the effects linked to the implementation method and to the activities themselves, and have been defined taking into account their descriptive capacity and cost.
Socio-economic benefits and risks
Project activities will generate direct employment for the development and farming of the agroforestry systems to be implemented and for the reforestation activities. The project is expected to create employment for a total of around 10,000 persons throughout its lifetime. Labor practices in the San Nicolas Region do not discriminate against gender, age or ethnicity, and decisions will be taken jointly between community and MASBOSQUES. The benefits of the activities will be distributed directly to landowners and shared according to the surface brought by each landowner to avoid inequalities in payments.
Project's activities also include training for farmers and communities, including training in the elaboration of the social cartography, in environmental matters, and in forest tree breeding. The project will also communicate with communities on its different aspects, including its financing and its forest management and monitoring plan, and will seek to coordinate the different areas and activities.
Other social benefits brought by the project's activities will include the generation of new food supply, increased food safety and stimulation of the local market, the creation of new firewood sources, and the improvement of the attractiveness of the region to foreign investment.
Potential risks associated to land tenure, though rated low for the project area since there are no disputes over the ownership of the land, will be mitigated by the elaboration of clear and easy understanding contracts with landowners. However risks associated to social tensions are not excluded in Colombian provinces, particularly risks linked to armed conflicts, the law and order - such as landowners' temporary displacements, and limitations in the accessibility to the project area. However these risks will be mitigated by the diversification and geographical dispersion of project activities and products, which diversifies the sources of income and reduces the propagation of damages. At a broader level, transparency and quality in the results, credibility of the project's social measures, guarantees of payment of CERs and increase in population incomes will also mitigate these risks. The project has also developed criteria and indicators to monitor socio-economic impacts, which will be included in the monitoring plan.
Finally, the communities and other stakeholders have been continuously involved in the project preparation and design through local workshops, and municipal and regional forum. Issues like localization, objective, justification, problems and potentialities have been discussed in the workshops, and other themes like forests importance and some products and by products forest uses were treated through surveys. Through this process the original design of the project was adapted to the needs of the local community. Final decisions on land use were for example made by the land owners (small farmers) through a participatory process and more productive activities were identified
Leakage
The project will cover non improved pastures that are currently abandoned and don't have competitive activities. It will equally not change land ownership, but rather be implemented with the active participation of the landowners and community. Leakage is therefore likely to be negligible.
The project will also implement sustainable forest management activities in the remaining forest present in the project area which are non eligible land for the main project's agroforestry and silvopastoral activities and will include them in the monitoring activities. These measures should help prevent any potential emissions from these forests.
Risk of Non Permanence
The agroforestry cultures developed by the project will be profitable and bring economic revenues to the farmers owning the land where they are to be developed. Farmers will therefore have an incentive to manage them sustainably and maintain them. Furthermore, CORNARE, who participates to the financing of the project, is bound by law to protect, preserve and manage natural resources in the region.
There are no disputes over the ownership of the land and farmers will see directly the benefits from the CERs transactions. Notwithstanding this, fire represents a real risk to the permanence of the sequestration, especially fire caused by carelessness (discarding of lighted cigarette etc) or freak weather conditions. Although unavoidable, this risk will be mitigated mainly by the dispersion of the activities and the construction of pits firebreaks.
The risk of forest plague in the zone is low, and will be mitigated by the promotion of good cultural practices in the project area and the continuation of the strips of natural vegetation, e.g. in fences or edge roads. This natural vegetation constitutes a valuable factor of protection from pests by providing a natural habitat for its parasites and various predators.
Additionality
The project will be implemented in non cultivated pasture lands, with no considerable productive activities. These lands don't have any competitive activities to the project proposed activities. Small farmers do not have the funds needed for the upfront investments necessary for the implementation of agroforestry and silvopastoral systems and would not be able to borrow them locally. They also lack the capacities and access to the necessary technology to develop such activities. These activities would not be economically attractive without the additional revenue brought by the carbon sequestration and the pastures would stay abandoned. The project therefore complies with the additionality criteria.
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