Reducing deforestation from palm oil and cocoa value chains

Objectives

To promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable food systems for enhanced livelihood opportunities in NW Liberia Landscape through land use planning, restoration of degraded lands, and strengthening governance, policies, and market incentives for nationally replicable models of deforestation-free cocoa and palm oil value chains.

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

Improved management of forest and lands under agriculture and agroforestry in Liberia will generate a range of socio-economic benefits including contributions to enhanced food security, livelihoods, and water availability and quality. Forest conservation achieved through community commitments under Conservation Agreements will also contribute to maintenance of key environmental provisioning services for a range of NTFPs. With respect to climate security, this project will help reduce GHG emissions and enhance carbon stocks through forest conservation, restoration, and climate-smart agriculture. Protection of forest ecosystems will provide climate mitigation benefits and enhance carbon stocks through natural regeneration. At the national level, a 2013 report estimated that 49% of Liberians faced some level of food insecurity, and 34% had inadequate food consumption patterns characterized by high intake of cereals and low intake of protein-rich foods (World Food Program 2013). Forest protection and landscape management for habitat connectivity will maintain critical reservoirs of bushmeat supply that represents 75% of protein consumption in Liberia; climate-smart agriculture will provide more dependable supplies of food crops; and improved agriculture and sustainable agroforestry will increase household incomes that further contribute to improved food security. To generate direct socio-economic benefits on the ground, the project will implement pilot activities to demonstrate climate-smart agriculture using the Conservation Agreement (CA) methodology with 9 clans throughout the Northwest Liberia Landscape. These agreements will improve the livelihoods of an estimated 6,000 people (half of whom are female). In return for community conservation commitments, the project will offer compensatory benefit packages such as alternative livelihood training, support for agroforestry establishment, and other benefits determined through participatory processes, and thereby catalyze behavioral change and reduce dependence on unsustainable resource use. Details of community commitments and benefits provided under the CAs will be determined in negotiation and design phases, but we anticipate that investments in local livelihoods and socioeconomic development will contribute to household incomes and enhance food security, improve access to education and health services, and provide direct income through conservation jobs (e.g. monitoring, surveillance, planting, etc.). Building on these demonstration projects, the training and capacity building program to be deployed under the proposed project will reach 40,000 beneficiaries (30,000 through training programs, and 10,000 through field demonstration work). Enhanced awareness of climate-smart agricultural practices will position these producers to take advantage of new opportunities for participation in sustainable commodity value chains. Incentive programs to be developed under the proposed project will facilitate such participation, reaching at least 10,000 beneficiaries, including household participation in CAs, improved agroforestry prospects through development of producer associations and partnerships with commercial operators, links to impact investors with an interest in positive social, environmental and economic outcomes, and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) (principally REDD+) for reduced carbon emissions linked to land use change and restoration. Some socio-economic benefits will differ by gender based on different gender roles in food production and income generating practices. In general, by intervening in ecosystem degradation trends through the application of integrated landscape management and land-use planning, the project will preserve the ability to continue activities essential for household food security as well as livelihoods. This will be achieved through training and support for sustainable cultivation practices as well as habitat restoration and maintenance. The project will contribute to rural development and natural resource governance through participatory land- and resource-use planning. By engaging nine clans and other relevant stakeholders in planning processes, the project will ensure that they have a voice in the design of sustainable resource extraction frameworks and benefit-sharing arrangements. Doing so will generate dual benefits of enhanced capacity and ownership at the local level. Through this process, communities will be empowered to negotiate future land and resource uses and help reduce power asymmetries between local people and other stakeholders.