Our media houses rarely fund such trips, especially to report on the environment which our editors give low priority to.

For us journalists, this can make work in our newsrooms frustrating, but when we do get to travel we realize that the environment beat is not neglected worldwide.

When I travelled to the UN climate change conference in Durban last month — with a fellowship from the Climate Change Media Partnership — I was amazed.

Whichever way I turned my head in the media centre, I could meet new journalist friends from every continent on Earth.

At the cafeteria nearby I could chat with experienced environment reporters from around the world – people whose articles form part of my daily diet in my newsroom back home.

I am not exaggerating when I say that reporting on the UN climate change talks is one of the best experiences an environment journalist could ever have. Suddenly it seems as if everyone in the world talks only about forests, water and climate.

My fellowship was funded by the Growing Forest Partnerships initiative, whose journalism programme I work for in Nepal.

The two week meeting was an amazing opportunity for me to develop the knowledge and skills I apply to that role by learning and networking with people from around the world.

Forests are everywhere at the climate change conference. From the entrance gate to the large exhibition hall and in negotiating rooms themselves, people are talking about trees.

Outside of the conference centre too, I learnt about the forests and how hard it is to generate new ones.

At the Buffelsdraai landfill site, operated by Durban municipality at the outskirts of the city, I visited an innovative project has helped women from local communities become “tree-preneurs“.

They sell seedlings of indigenous species to the municipality which then plants them across hundreds of hectares of former sugar cane fields.

The trip to Durban counted a lot for me as it provided an opportunity to learn and make new friends, to report back to local audiences in Nepal about the global talks and gain international exposure for my stories.

For any environment journalist in a dilemma about whether to continue their profession, this kind of meeting can inspire optimism. Amid the swirling politics, we can see the world coming together to discuss how forests, water and climate are all important for our future.

These are the stories we must keep telling.

Busisiwe Ndlela

Busisiwe Ndlela was radiant when I met her yesterday. Just this month, and with money she earned selling tiny trees, she has bought a new cupboard and an electric stove and she is proud as can be.

I met this 60-year old mother of seven on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa where she and hundreds of other women are helping to transform their communities and the landscape around them, one seed at a time.

Welcome to the Buffelsdraai landfill site, operated by the eThekwini (Durban) municipality. Under law there must be a buffer zone between it and local residents, and until recently this was occupied by fields of sugar cane.

“Sugar cane did nothing for us,” says Busisiwe when I ask her about life before the tree-planting project began. “It was for them [white farmers], not us.”

This all changed in 2008, when the municipality began to work with local people to turn this 800-hectare area into a mosaic of native grasses and rich forest, to help offset the carbon emissions associated with South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup.

As the new trees mature over the next 20 years, they will absorb 48,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide — about the same amount produced by 25,000 passengers flying from Northern Europe to South Africa and back again.

As well as helping to limit climate change, the project aims to protect wild nature, improve water quality downstream and create new livelihoods for poor local communities.

It is a simple idea, and it revolves around jobless local people like Busisiwe becoming ‘tree-preneurs’.

First, they collect seeds of native tree species and then they plant them at home in old bottles, plastic bags and other containers. Once the trees reach a certain height the tree-preneurs can sell them to the municipality, which then grows them up a bit more in a nursery before planting them in the buffer zone.

So far more than 600 people have got involved — 80 percent of them women — and they have sold a quarter of a million baby trees, including acacias and several species of wild fig trees.

A 30-centimetre tall tree is worth five rand but if a tree-preneur tends it a little longer and it reaches a metre in height, she can sell it for ten rand (US$1.25). In reality, this is a cashless project. Instead the tree-preneurs receive vouchers that they can exchange for things like food, building materials and school fees for their children’s education.

Since 2008, Busisiwe has sold about 1,200 trees and — depending on their height — this will have earned her vouchers worth between US$750 and US$1500. In a part of the world with 80 percent unemployment, few opportunities and a minimum wage of under a dollar an hour, this income is not to be sniffed at.

The star seed planter though is Ningi Gcabashe. She has sold 15,000 trees to the project and now works as a facilitator, teaching other members of the community about native tree species and how to grow them from seed.

“When the project came to Buffelsdraai, I never realised it would help the community,” said Ningi yesterday, before explaining that she has been able to build a new home using bricks she brought with vouchers from the trees.

“My life improved,” she said. “Before the project I never touched a car. Now I have paid for driving lessons.”

Today she manages the Trees for Life programme of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, the organisation that runs the reforestation at Buffelsdraai. This is just one of several full-time jobs the project has created.

There is temporary work too, especially at this rainy time of year when around 60 communities members are paid to plant trees.

And in a couple of years when the job is complete and 500 hectares of forest have been replanted, new opportunities will spring up.

“After the canopy is planted there will be enrichment plantings, i.e. planting in the understory to increase the biodiversity in the forest,” says Sean O’Donoghue of the eThekwini municipality’s environmental planning and climate protection department.

“Thereafter we’re hoping to create jobs with regards maintaining the forest,” he says. “There will also be waste-preneur opportunities — collection of recyclable waste and selling back to us. And we hope to stimulate eco-tourism in the buffer zone, for example mountain bike tracks.”

The idea is that these activities can form the basis of sustainable businesses and long-term employment for the surrounding communities.

In time, the forest can bring many new benefits but women like Busisiwe and Ningi are already gaining from the greening. “People did not believe,” says Ningi. “Now they do.”

This story originally appeared at Mike Shanahan’s blog — Under the Banyan

Nepali participants meeting at ICC, Forest users group boycotted the meeting after raising their voice on denial

Community forest groups demand access to climate negotiations, but lose out as fight between ministries heats up

Members of a federation of community forests from Nepal accused the government of Nepal of being biased towards them by refusing to accept their representative as a party delegate at UN climate talks.

Members of domestic and international NGOs were accepted as delegates, in addition to government officials. They are here in South Africa with delegates from 195 countries at the 17th annual UN climate summit.

“When we asked the government to give status of party to some of our members they denied. But we found out here (in Durban) that they have brought the people from NGOs and INGOs as the party delegates. It’s not fair, “said Dil Raj Khanal, who represents the Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN) and is also the legal expert on natural resources.

“Everybody talks about communities by mouth but at the inner heart there is no respect for the communities,” added Khanal.

However, Batu Krishna Uprety who is the head of Climate Change Management Division at the Ministry of Environment who leads the UN climate negotiations said that they didn’t received any request from FECOFUN. “We haven’t received your request,” he replied to the query of community forest users’ representatives.

The community forest members said that the Ministry of Environment had advised them to make their request to the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) as the forest ministry is the line ministry for the community forests group. But when the forest ministry sent the letter onward, it was rejected by the environment ministry.

“Everyone  is selling our name but when it comes to do some favor for us then everybody starts sweating,” said Ganesh Karki, General Secretary of FECOFUN. “We have especially realized this with the Ministry of Environment, so we boycott this meeting.”

The rift between the Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Environment is widening due to climate change in the country. The Ministry of Environment is the focal ministry to deal with climate change, something with which the Ministry of Forests has not been happy from the beginning. The forest ministry is one of the biggest and most powerful ministries in the country, far more powerful than the relatively new Ministry of Environment.

To complicate matters, the major forest initiative on climate change under the UN — known as Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) — is looked over by the forest ministry. On the other hand, the focal point for the whole UN climate treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is under the  oversight of  the environment ministry.

The forest ministry seems like it’s not happy with the limited role given to the UNFCCC processes.

These ministerial disputes have affected even the personal relationships of the officials from both ministries. In many forums they keep on criticizing each others’ work. It has become clear that they are actinag as rivals when it comes to the issue of climate change.

The rift between the ministries increased dramatically due to a cabinet meeting at Mount Everest base camp in 2009,  as ministers even stopped talking to each other. The main reason behind the fallout was the leadership of the erstwhile forest minister Deepak Bohara in organizing the cabinet meeting at the base camp of Mount Everest prior to the UN  climate change meeting in Copenhagen. The forest ministry’s lead at that time had irked environment ministry officials.

FECOFUN is a federation of more than 15,000 community forest user groups in Nepal and is one of the key players in the forestry sector. The fight between the two ministries could be one reason for the denial to include FECOFUN representatives in the government delegation.

“We don’t get any information on what’s going on inside the negotiation from the government. If our representative was included in the government then we would have been updated about the process and that could have been very useful to disseminate information about the real negotiations to our members across the country,” said Bhim Prakash Khadka, Vice-Chairman of FECOFUN, who is also here in Durban.

It is estimated that the COP 17, taking place here from November 28^th to December 9^th, will emit approximately 76.919 tons of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere, according to the Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa. This calculation is based on the estimated 25,000 delegates , NGO members and other visitors attending the COP.

International flights will have the largest impact on the overall carbon footprint. Other items took into account are: accommodation, electricity and water expenditures, food and information packs.

However, delegates and visitors will be able to reduce their carbon emissions through a voluntary offset mechanism called CEBA (Community Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Initiative), by buying carbon credits at www.durbanceba.org . Each credit costs 100 Rands (approximately USD12).

The funds will be used to support more than 42 initiatives hold by the eThtekwini Municipality, to which the city of Durban belongs. One of these projects is the Buffersdraai Landfill Reforestation Plan. It involves the community by providing them with skills to collect seeds from local tree species, grow them, and then resell them to the government. “Tree-preneurs” get from 5 to 10 Rands for each small tree, depending on its size, in credits to buy food, school stuff or building materials.

“My life improved after I joined this plantation program in 2008”, said Ziningi, mother of five children, who lives in the surroundings of Durban. “At the beginning, people didn’t believe they could get paid on that, but I began planting trees and that helped me not only to buy food, but also bricks for my house, and to pay for my driver’s license,” said Ziningi. Now she drives the bus that gets people to the tree nursery of the program, and she is a coach for other participants of the project.

Tree seedlings take several months to grow, and each producer can grow as many trees as he or she (most of them are women) has room at home. The goal of the program is to reforest land destroyed or converted to sugar cane plantations. The new forest is aimed at mitigating climate change in the city and providing job opportunities.

This project began in 2008 as part of the “Greening Durban Program,” to offset the 2010 soccer World Cup’s  carbon footprint.  Until today, the Municipalityhas  invested 13 million rand.

Other projects focus on adaptation to climate change, such as the Durban Central Beach Front Dune Rehabilitation. “The objective is to protect dunes and sand in the coastal zone”, explained Sean O’ Donoghue, climate protection manager at eThekwini Municipality. Dunes are important to manage wind-blown sand, and to protect the beaches and the infrastructure of this very touristic city. The municipality invested 6 million Rands to launch it.

The money would also fund research in smallholder production systems and markets, management and conservation of forest and tree resources, landscape management of forested areas for environmental services, biodiversity conservation and livelihoods, and impacts of trade and investment on forests and people.

Launching the programme on Dec. 4 during CIFOR’s fifth annual Forest Day, part of the on-going climate change conference here, Vice President of Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Rachel Kyte, said that the research programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry aims to revamp efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation and expand the use of trees on farms. The programme is the brainchild of a consortium of world renowned agricultural research institutions under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including the Forest Day organizers, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“The initiative focuses on the critical importance of forests as natural ‘carbon sinks’ that can help slow the pace of climate change and the need to conserve forest biodiversity,” she said, adding that improved management of forests and trees can play a wider role in reducing risks for smallholder farmers and improving the wellbeing of forest- dependent communities, particularly women and disadvantaged groups.

Already, USD90 million has been raised for the programme while the rest would be secured through fund-raising activities.

The programme comes at a time when deforestation and forest degradation are accelerating climate change and threatening the wellbeing of millions of poor people around the world.

“Under these circumstances, we urgently need a strong  and sustained effort focusing on forest management and governance, given the crucial role of forests in confronting some of the most important challenges of our time: climate change, poverty and food security,” said Frances Seymour, CIFOR director general. She added that without addressing deforestation and forest degradation, the world risks the further impoverishment of millions of poor people who depend on forests and trees for their livelihoods.

“On the other hand we will continue to witness continued carbon emissions from forest destruction and degradation that are a significant source of greenhouse gases, and loss of ecosystem services crucial to sustained agricultural activity,” she stressed.

Implementation of the programme will involve the collaboration of four of the world’s leading research centers. They are the Kenya- based World Agroforestry Centre, CIFOR based in Indonesia, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) based in Colombia and Biodiversity International in Italy.  “These will be the focal points of project implementation but  we will work with universities and research institutions  in the various countries when it comes to the practical implementation of the project,” Kyte told CCMP fellows in a separate interview.

In Tanzania, The University of Dar es Salaam through the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) has been conducting various researches on adaptation and mitigation particularly for small farmers in the rural communities. The Sokoine University of Agriculture based in Morogoro , Tanzania has also been conducting research in these areas, also involving the rural poor in their activities. These two universities are likely to benefit most from the programme.

Asked on the dissemination of the findings, the CGIAR Chair explained that information on research findings would be timely disseminated. “Our aim is to help communities cope with effects of climate change. This means once we get findings we will disseminate them so that they are put into use by small farmers, so that they may take adaptation measure and reduce poverty,” she said.

Presenting the results of a case study on implementation of ecosystem adaption in the rural communities of western Tanzania, Dr Elizabeth Gray from The Nature Conservancy said that many communities in Tanzania have adequate information on climate change, “but their efforts to adapt are hampered by lack of accurate data and finance.”

The new forest code looks likely to win approval in Brazil this week, even as negotiators from that country and more than 180 others meet at the UN climate summit here in Durban, South Africa. Opponents of the new code say it will decrease the amount of forest that landowners need to protect, such as along rivers or hill slopes. They say the new legislation will hurt Brazil’s goals to reduce the threat of global climate change.

But Brazil’s negotiators at the UN talks denied the new code will prevent Brazil from meeting its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which were announced in climate talks in 2009 and 2010. (Brazil is not bound by international law — like the Kyoto Protocol — to set greenhouse gas targets, but as a big emerging economy and forest country, it is under pressure to act.)

Andre Lago, head of Brazil’s delegation in Durban, said he doesn’t believe that the new forest code could affect Brazil’s progress in fighting global warming. “Brazil is achieving all goals pledged at international meetings,” he said. “And the government will keep its green policies, with or without the new forest code.”

Comments to this effect by members of the Federal Government last week in Durban earned Brazil its first-ever Fossil of the Day Awards on the sidelines of the climate summit. This “prize” is awarded by the Climate Action Network (CAN) to countries judged to have done their ‘best’ to block progress in negotiations each day. Brazil earned first place on Friday Dec. 2 for suggesting that the new forest law would actually reduce greenhouse gases emissions in a speech by Eduardo Assad, Climate Change Secretary of the Federal Government.

As ministers from around the world begin to arrive in Durban for the second week of talks, the future of the Kyoto Protocol is in doubt. Brazil is a signatory to the protocol, but as a developing country is not legally required to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.  Because up to 20 percent of carbon emissions are blamed on deforestation, however, Brazil is under pressure to limit the amount of carbon that is released into the atmosphere from forest clearing.

As to whether a second period of Kyoto commitments — the first period expires next year — will be agreed by industrialized countries this week, Lago said ” Brazil and other developing countries are waiting for agreement that includes commitments from developed countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Read more about this in Portuguese here and here.

Tree-felling has degraded Nigeria's once-rich forests. Bruce Paton | Panos Pictures

Nigeria once at the heart of the tropical rainforest belt, has lost around 95 per cent of its forest cover and now imports 75 per cent of its timber. But an initiative – which calls on people living around the forest to repair the damage, is underway.

With his gaze fixed on a row of pale-looking tree seedlings struggling to sprout, Nelson Egho cuts the figure of a concerned man. He planted the seedlings in the hope that they would grow into trees in what was formerly a thick forest reserve. Now the Urhonigbe Forest Reserve in the Niger Delta is all but barren grassland.

Like other trees that once had their roots here, and have since been cut down for firewood, logs and land, Egho’s saplings are threatened by a host of factors which he is fighting to keep at bay.

“For the past two weeks now we have been trying to clear the lines in which we planted tree seedlings, but due to a fire that gutted the area last time, we needed to replace the seedlings that were burnt,” he says, a drop of sweat running down his face.

“Again, we are battling with elephant grass; we are making sure we control them; the grasses must not compete with the trees that are already growing. If not, the unwanted grasses will compete with the trees in terms of sunlight and nutrients.”

Egho’s challenge is similar to that encountered by the other interest groups, saddled with the unenviable task of protecting what remains of Urhonigbe Forest Reserve, and restoring the sections that have been wiped out.

According to the Nigeria Conservation Foundation, the forest provided habitat for at least 11 types of mammals and 41 varieties of bird species before it was cut down between the early 1920s and 2006 when action began to stop its obliteration.

Chris Ameh, a site officer at the reserve notes that the forest was so dense and rich that it was classified as a strictly protected nature reserve by the United Nations.

“Right now, the place has been badly deforested,” he said, “ and it has been taken over by spear, and elephant grasses. I think the people [whose activities degraded the forest] saw the danger that was coming, and decided to halt.”

Bush burning a menace

Ameh lamented that some efforts being made at regeneration were being thwarted by annual bush burning, previously caused by cattle Fulani herdsmen, but now largely caused by local farmers, and rodent hunters, whose destructive nocturnal activities are hard to check.

“They leave the place with fire, and it razes what we have planted, it is very frustrating,” he said.

On the whole, conservationists have identified deforestation, uncontrolled subsistence farming, illegal hunting, wildfires and over grazing as some of factors that have undermined efforts being made to regenerate the reserve.

All this notwithstanding, a Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) is being vigorously implemented to save the forest. Funded by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), the BAP is being touted as the means by which an efficient and sustainable management of natural resources on offer can be carried out.

Locals spearhead the restoration

The plan emphasises the importance of the participation of the communities around the forest. Thus the project established the Forest Management Committee and the Grassroots Consultative Committee in communities around the reserve. The eight-person management committee includes the community head, head farmer, youth, men and women leaders in each of the communities around the forest reserve. Members of the grassroots committee are nominated from among management committee.

For Professor Emmanuel Obot, Executive Director of the Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF), who advocates a bottom-up approach to environmental management, making the local people the centrepiece of the efforts to save, and regenerate the Urhonigbe reserve, is crucial.

“We are hoping that the traditional rulers there will provide an enabling environment, while the communities manage the resources there. It is not an NCF or a Shell thing; it is a community based action by which we are trying to demonstrate that it is possible.”

Recently, Edo State became the first among the 36 states of the Nigerian federation to pass a biodiversity law. This novel piece of legislation, as far as Nigeria is concerned, has provided legal backing for the work being done to protect biodiversity in Urhonigbe.

Finding alternatives to poaching

Michael Uwagbae hails from one of the communities around the forest; he is the Biodiversity Action Plan Project Manager at the reserve. He says on the strength of the biodiversity law, poachers and other elements carrying out illegal and damaging activities in the reserve are being checked, and brought to book.

“The project has made an impact in the sense that it has brought about the ownership of the forest to communities. It has made communities know that the forest belongs to them, and they should manage it themselves; that alone has really made it unique.”

They are also exploring options to create alternative livelihoods for members of the communities.“We are still on a learning process. The result has been mixed because some say it doesn’t work, while others give it a try. I think the alternative means of livelihood has worked to a large extent. It has taken some people off the forests, and it has made them realise that they can actually take their eyes off it by doing others things like fishing, and animal husbandry to generate income.”

Bush meat a hard habit to break

These measures, notwithstanding, the demand for bush meat, from forest animals, has proved extremely difficult to combat. A restaurant owner in the area says although she and her customers miss the ‘real bush meat’ from the forest, which is tastier than that from animal husbandry, everyone is trying to cope.

A traditional ruler in the community, the Enogie n Ugo- Niyekorhuawon, E.O Ogiugo, who also reiterated his people’s undying love for bush meat, explained that he believed that gradually, the message of sustainable management of the forests would catch on.

- the sheer scale of the destruction

- the potential of forests to capture carbon and mitigate climate change

- the involvement of the forest dwellers in pushing for its restoration

- the fact that an oil company operating in Nigeria is funding the project

The project took off in 2007 and since then, logging, hunting and bush burning have been halted. Nursery beds for ‘fast growing’ trees have been set up, and according to the site officer, 5000 trees have been planted. Much of the depleted area of the reserve is still grassland, with the trees struggling to grow.

But the damage is still very much in evidence. As I travelled along the tarred road that links Urhonigbe, and other communities in the hinterland to gather this story, my first encounter was with a thick stretch of green vegetation. Birds called from the trees, crickets whistled in the grass and women returned from their farms with bundles of firewood and sacks of peeled cassava strapped to scooters or bicycles. The aroma from cooking pots mingled with the freshness of the greenery.

Then the peaceful and pleasant stretch ended abruptly. The space opened up, and the sun became much more ferocious. All that could be seen for many kilometres was a few trees struggling not to be dwarfed by the stubborn-looking grasses. It is this area in which the forest-dwellers face the challenge of growing enough trees to restore the forest as part of a project funded by the oil company Shell.

Shell still has a pretty horrible reputation in Nigeria, especially in Ogoniland, but Urhonigbe is not an oil producing community. The Urhonigbe Forest Reserve project is being carried out during the pilot phase of Shell’s promised activity to roll out a programme of environmental conservation and biodiversity protection. Locals are optimistic that interventions like this will, over the years, regenerate the forests.

Another oil company Chevron has the creation of a Niger Delta Conservation Centre on the cards. It is believed that years of agitation and hoopla by environmentalists, increased media scrutiny, recent hearings on Shell’s activities in the Dutch parliament and the current climate change debate have persuaded oil companies in Nigeria to begin responding. Shell maintains that protecting biodiversity is important to its operations in the Niger Delta.

Whether this will prove to be a fad for them or a serious and sustainable environmental intervention remains to be scrutinised.