Farm Africa visits Amazon rainforest during Rio +20

19 June 2012

With world leaders focused on a more sustainable approach to global development at the Rio +20 conference this week, Farm Africa is part of a team travelling to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to learn from work there reducing deforestation and promoting more sustainable ways for people to earn their living.

The team, on an exchange visit organized by the Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development of Amazonas (IDSAM), includes representatives from Farm Africa Ethiopia, SOS Sahel Ethiopia, the Oromia Forest and Wildlife Enterprise and the Ethiopian Government’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Reducing deforestation

They will travel to the city of Manaus on the river Amazon to exchange ideas with members of a Brazilian project working to reduce deforestation in the heart of the rainforest. As well as learning from their Brazilian colleagues, the Ethiopian team is hoping to provide some insights of their own from the work they have undertaken with forest communities in Ethiopia to reduce deforestation.

The groups are eager to exchange ideas on reducing deforestation for one simple reason: deforestation is a major contributing factor to increased emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, making them one of the most efficient systems for capturing and storing carbon dioxide. The fewer trees there are to capture and ‘lock up’ carbon, the more carbon there is in the planet’s atmosphere, which in turn increases the effects of climate change.

Sharing insights and experiences will be invaluable for both teams. Farm Africa, alongside its partners, is busy preparing to integrate a major international deforestation scheme on one of its project sites in the Bale Mountains in 2013.

REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation

That scheme is REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. It’s an important initiative for securing a reduction in carbon emissions through limiting deforestation. REDD financially compensates developing countries that reduce their carbon emissions through reducing deforestation.

Along with its Ethiopian partners, Farm Africa is busy preparing to implement one of the world’s largest REDD projects over approximately 500,000 hectares of forest in the Bale Mountain region of Ethiopia, home to Africa’s largest Afro-alpine habitat.

Our project will fall within a larger programme, the Bale Eco-Region Sustainable Management Programme and will develop income-generating activities for communities living in Bale’s forests that do not involve felling timber. These will include coffee-growing, beekeeping and tree nurseries.