Land Management

The N'hambita Community Carbon Project

A European Union Project led by The University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences

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Land Management

The land use decisions which affect the community are made collaboratively between the project management team and the community. A democratically elected team in the community is responsible for the decisions which are made on behalf on the community as a whole. This includes decisions such as locations for forest regeneration and fire break maintenance.

- Project Registration

- Training

- Monitoring

- Irrigation

- Fire Protection

- Forest Management

- Riparian Planting

- Reforestation and Enrichment

Cleared mashamba

Community meeting

Project Registration

Small landholders sign a contract voluntarily, wanting to involve their farms, which are mainly between 0.7 - 1.8 ha in the scheme. By making a commitment to the land farmers become custodians of the plot and it means that there is an incentive to manage it effectively. This, commitment, and ownership of the farm is a requirement of the Plan Vivo system, and ensures that the land will be managed into the future.
Firstly a contract is drawn up with the community where the project is taking place which includes their commitment to:

Reforestation of deforested community land
Forest management
Fire management.

A farmer from the community who joins the project must go through the following stages:

Map mashamba
Survey vegetation
Sign contract
Create a Plan Vivo for the land
Undergo appropriate training
Plant land according to plan
Three months after planting first monitoring to take place
Regular surveys (at least 2 monitoring surveys per year) Also all the trees have to be counted in years 1,2,3,5 and 7. This is done by the technicians.

Map showing spread of the community

Training

Once farmers are engaged in the scheme they are trained in all the necessary skills required to plant and maintain the trees. Community members involved in the fire management team and all micro-enterprises are trained by project staff.

Plan Vivo training, May 2004

Training, May 2004

New tree growth, November 2004

Monitoring

Extensionists (the first level of community workers) are responsible for the initial monitoring. In the early stages it is the number of trees surviving which determines whether the criteria have been met to show the required volumes of carbon have been sequestered and later more specific measurements such as dbh (diameter of the tree at 1.3m) and basal area (cross sectional area of the tree trunk at 1.3m) are used. Technicians carry out the more detailed surveys which have to be carried out in years 1,2,3,5 and 7 before payments can be made to farmers.

Irrigation

A borehole needed for irrigation has been set up recently. With micro-irrigation, a range of vegetables and other cash crops can be grown. Pedal pumps are used to fill the tanks.

Watering the nursery, June 2004	Nursery borehole, 2005
Irrigation drip system barrells	Irrigation drip system, April 2005

Fire Protection

Fire breaks, and two groups of 12 community members trained as fire fighters are responsible for monitoring the presence of fires in the area. Recently fire fighting equipment has been purchased for the project which will allow fire fighting to be more effective. See fire research for more information on current fire control methods.

Project staff view the forest

Forest Management

Regular monitoring of reforested areas, allows forest management to be carried out. Fire protection (above) is one of the main activities, along with replacement of dead trees.

Riparian Planting

Planting along riverine areas has the additional benefits of stabilising banks.

Reforestation and enrichment

Currently 70% of credits are allocated to reforestation and enrichment of existing forest areas and 30% for tree planting and agroforestry.

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