|
Fieldwork Bolivia 2004 & 2005
The Noel Kempff Climate Action Project of The Nature Conservancy is the 1st conservation project world-wide to have sought independent 3rd party verification as if it was an eligible CDM project. SGS was selected as the operational entity and the founding director of Treeness Consult, Eveline Trines, led the international team of experts that conducted the validation and verification work. In that context she has visited the project site twice and spent significant time with the other team members checking all associated project documentation. The pictures here give an impression of that type of expertise that Treeness Consult offers. |
|
Crossing the river, the natural project boundary, into the National Park Noel Kempff Mercado in Eastern Bolivia is not a simple task. There are only two such entrances into the park besides the old airstrip in the heart of the park that was constructed by the concessionaire, who is now indemnified. Illegal logging has become a very unattractive business this way! This picture was taken during field inspections in 2005. |
|
During the same inspection, the auditor went back to the forest to retrace some inventory plots to re-measure the vegetation, to verify that the carbon claims made by the project are trust-worthy. |
|
Modern technology in ancient woodland: every tree measured during the inventory is tagged and numbered. This enables us to go back and revisit the same plots. The data are logged into the computer. Over the years time series are being built up to see progress (or not). Here trees measured in the past are re-measured and checked during the process of verification of carbon sequestration to verify carbon claims made by the project. |
|
To verify concession yields, numbers that are used in the baseline of the project, adjacent concessions were willing to provide us with harvesting numbers, as was the forestry service. This enabled the project to make an estimate of the business as usual scenario and us to verify those assumptions. |
|
1987 |
|
The same spot in 2003 |
|
Large agricultural developments, like the soy bean farm on this picture, are another serious threat to the remaining forest. |
|
Another aspect of the verification work is checking up on illegal practices: encroachment or logging. This is not within the project boundaries, but exhibits the type of clearings that are found in the area outside the project boundaries in business as usual scenarios. |
|
The 7 indigenous communities living along the river that forms the boundary of the project are part of the project. A huge community programme is supporting the sustainable character of the project. To assist those communities to develop themselves programmes of sustainable forest management have been introduced, so they do not loose the forest to opportunistic logging firms that offer them quick money in exchange for their valuable trees. Other elements of the community programme are eco-tourism, grants for education and many more things. To verify the implementation of the programme and make sure that the communities are happy with what the project is providing, we inspected their logging operations and spoke with 4 out of the 7 community leaders. |
|
Visiting the communities is always a pleasure: lunch is being served soon! And the fish in the river is plentiful! |
|
Fieldwork Uganda 2004
The Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda has been encroached by people for many decades, until the government stopped the activities of the population in the park. But the forest vegetation had been damaged or removed in such a way that even after many years, the indigenous vegetation could not fight its way back through the thick layer of invading species such as Kikuyu grass and climbers and vines. The FACE Foundation offered help and made an agreement with the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA), who administers and manages the National Parks, that they would provide funding for reforestation with indigenous species if UWA would implement the project: take care of the planting and the tending the 1st 5 years after planting. UWA agreed: they get the forest back and FACE gets the carbon credits. To demonstrate the level of their performance FACE/UWA sought independent 3rd party verification of both the level of sustainability of the project and their carbon sequestration. The standard that was elected for the sustainable forest management certification was the one of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the carbon component followed the methodology of the designated operational entity SGS; the Carbon Offset Verification Service (COV). The founding director of Treeness Consult, Eveline Trines, was a member of the international team of experts that conducted the validation and verification work for carbon offsets and the FSC certification. The picture that follow give an impression of some of the fieldwork. |
|
The roof of the nursery at an early morning: here the planting material is produced that will enrich the vegetation of the National Park. It is run by UWA staff and all workers are from local communities. |
|
The terrain is rugged and the landscape a small-scale mosaic. All fieldwork is done entirely by foot: planting, tending, and thus also the inspections…. |
|
Sometimes the distance to the park is a couple of kilometres that need to be crossed by foot, through steep terrain: all small agricultural fields of the local population. Mount Elgon is an old Vulcan and hence, the soil is rich! Together with the abundant rain this is a very good area for crop production!
|
|
Maps and GPS help orient oneself, but local knowledge is often much faster tapped in to! |
|
Because there is a lack of transport and/or roads, the local people convert stems into planks and beams on the spot. They call it “pit sawing” because the person at the bottom stands in a pit. |
|
The National Park still has many “donkey trails” kept open by people traversing the forest area on the mountain sloops on their way to the bamboo fields above the tree-line. The have “community resource agreement” with UWA that allows them to harvest bamboo shoots, collect fire wood, and any other forest product that they wish to use in pre-determined quantities. UWA supervises the collection to make sure no excess amounts are taken. Obviously this is all verified during the fieldwork.
|
|
One of the aspects that is also being checked under the FSC standard is road construction. The butterflies here are conducting their own assessment obviously, and guess what: they like the cement better that the trees! |
|
At the end of the week, during a closing meeting, the project is informed of the findings of the team and next steps are agreed. |
|
But the forest is not just at threat from logging. This shot above is taken fro the sky, flying out to the project site in a small airplane. The government is actually causing a lot of deforestation itself (“governed” deforestation) by assigning indigenous people, who come from the Andes to the Eastern lowland of Bolivia to try their luck, to this kind of settlements. From the orbit it looks like the pictures on the left from 1987 and 2003. |