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CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND

AFRICAN AGRICULTURE GRANTEE CONVENING

24-25 February 2011

Cocoa Carbon Initiative - Ghana

Nature Conservation Research Centre

Dr. Winston Asante

NATURE

CONSERVATION

RESEARCH CENTRE

Conserving the Environment;

Developing Communities.

1

Brief Background of the Institution

Nature Conservation Research Centre

• Leading NGO in West Africa in PES and carbon space.

• Developing 1st African Centre of Excellence in Applied PES with

12 in-house specialists.

• Facilitating forest and agriculture carbon finance projects in

Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.

• Considering increasing its reach to provide support to emerging

projects in East Africa.

2

Other climate change projects

Carbon Map of Ghana

• Collaboration with FC, Oxford, NASA, FT, & research bodies

• Supports Ghana’s national REDD readiness MRV effort

• Produced freely available 100m resolution carbon map

• Relationship between in situ biomass density and remote

sensing characteristics.

Nyankamba REDD+

• Aims to avoid deforestation and degradation plus promote

carbon stock enhancement and conservation through

implementation of community/farmer CREMA

• 240,000 ha of savanna woodland in Ghana’s Northern Region

• Major seasonal wildlife corridor between 2 large national parks

• PIN submitted to BioCF, currently addressing gaps and

moving towards support for PDD.

3

Objectives of the Rockefeller Foundation Grant

Work with Ghanaian cocoa farmer organizations to:

• Increase their capacity to access carbon finance,

• Create the basic conditions for private investment in activities that

mitigate carbon emissions,

• Enhance farmer livelihoods

4

Key Activities Related to the Grant

1) Defining the general cocoa carbon strategy and assessing its feasibility.

• Moving forward at Bonsam Bepo site: drivers of deforestation, boundaries, ,

• Defining farm-level activities

• On-going pre-feasibility assessment

2) Engaging with key cocoa sector stakeholders and likely partners to

guage potential roles and modes of partnership.

• CREMA development: 13 community-level committees, moving to Board establishment

• Engagement with farmer associations and licensed buying companies

3) Building capacity and supporting an enabling environment for REDD+

and carbon finance at the national level.

• 3 trainings / capacity building workshops on key technical and policy issues

• Analysis of legal and policy environment for REDD+

• Development of the Carbon Map

• Extensive collaboration with FC- Climate Change Unit

5

Highlight on the Progress to date

February- launch of the Carbon Map

February- land-use modeling and carbon stock mapping training. Bonsam Bepo site

was main example in this training

January- assessment of REDD+ / Agricultural carbon methodologies for Bonsam

Bepo site

November- exercise to define project boundaries based on traditional boundaries,

district boundaries, cocoa system patterns, and forest boundaries

October- workshop on REDD+ architecture and sub-national options to support

inclusions of projects under national strategy

June- field training on measuring and assessing carbon stocks in forest & agro

ecosystems at Bonsam Bepo site

6

Early Findings from Key Activities

Legal and Policy Analysis of Tree & Forest Carbon

• Existing legal frame-work prioritizes economic exploitation for

State’s benefit

• Farmers and forest-based communities have few legal,

economic, customary incentives to maintain trees and forests.

• Carbon needs legal & policy definition

• Examples of benefit sharing arrangements provide examples of

how carbon benefits can be managed.

• Before REDD/Agric carbon can be realized need to address poor

forest stewardship and governance, perverse policy incentives,

weak law enforcement, land disputes and conflicts.

Carbon Map of Ghana

• Provide 1st total biomass carbon stock for country.

• Site level preliminary carbon stocking figures for feasibility work

• Extrapolation of the map is currently informing a redefinition of

Ghana’s forest.

7

Key Challenges

• Assessing carbon stocks and baseline in a complex mosaic

landscape

• Building awareness and understanding of farm-level sampling of

carbon, avoiding misconceptions

• Heightened expectation of carbon credits and benefits

• Need to harmonize land and tree tenure in project area

• Finding multiple farmer organization “partners” who can bring

necessary scale of aggregation to project site

8

Lessons Learnt

• Need to progress cautiously in-view of

community expectation of carbon credits and

REDD. Failure to deliver can cause significant

problems.

• Need for detailed demonstration of carbon

sampling during community engagement.

• CREMA boundaries demarcated according to

harmonized land tenure arrangements.

• Ground level monitoring of carbon stocks likely

to be critical component of MRV

9

Emerging Opportunities for Collaboration

• Unprecedented collaboration between the govt FC and NCRC

• Sense of ownership of the C mapping process by State agencies and

ministries.

• Cocoa buying companies and financial institutions seriously seeking

pathway to engage in agriculture and carbon-based finance.

• New climate-focused certification options (SAN Climate Module)

• Emerging technology for carbon stock monitoring (Helveta)

10

Next steps

• Detailed carbon sampling of cocoa farm dynamics and shade levels

so as to enable distinction between cocoa farms w/shade, w/out

shade, and forests using remote sensing.

• Detailed technical/economic assessment of project activities

• Complete Project Idea Note (PIN)

• Begin development of Project Design Document (PDD)

• On-going CREMA development activities

• Design benefit sharing mechanisms with stakeholders

• Policy Briefs: Institutional arrangements on MRV- challenges,

lessons learned and recommendations from the Carbon Map

experience

• Draft working paper on CREMAs, REDD and benefit sharing