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Community PES – Community Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) in the Congo Basin

Initiative

Summary

The Community PES Project was piloted in two Community Forests; the Nkolenyeng Community Forest (1,042 ha) and Nomedjoh Community Forest (1,730 ha). The primary goal of the project is to maintain and enhance existing forest cover and carbon stocks in each community and using the finance generated from the sale of carbon credits to improve livelihoods in each community.

Validation of the project is complete under the Plan Vivo Standard. The Project Design Document can be downloaded from the Plan Vivo website.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

• Maintain forest cover, and thereby maintain carbon stocks, biodiversity and the capacity of forests to provide products, protect watersheds, and prevent soil erosion
• Improve and strengthen community forest management by equipping communities with the knowledge and capacity to manage and protect their environmental assets
• Provide alternative income generating activities that help alleviate poverty and improve livelihoods and the ability of communities to cope with institutional, economic and natural resource changes
• Help develop technical capacity at all levels and support the reform or formulation of appropriate national community forestry legislation and institutions across the region
• Derive practical lessons for future community-based REDD+ initiatives and feed these into relevant regional and international REDD+ policy processes.

Stakeholder engagement and participation

Community participation is a pervasive and prominent aspect of the Community PES project. There has been a strong emphasis on a community-led approach in all aspects of the project development and establishment process. Community members have been integrally involved in decision making about land use and livelihood activities. Participatory methods have been used to elicit knowledge about land cover and land use and threats to forest cover and biodiversity. The communities involved in the project are the communities of Nkolenyeng and
Nomedjoh. Community field workers have been chosen for both communities and will assist with the implementation and monitoring of project activities.

Land tenure arrangements and carbon rights

Communities in Cameroon hold exclusive rights to the products of community forests - wood, non-wood, wildlife, fishery resources and special products. Carbon is not explicitly mentioned in the legislation on community forests, but the fact that carbon is simply a function of biomass is a sufficient basis for attributing carbon associated with project activities to communities responsible for carrying out project activities.
Awareness and recognition of the Nkolenyeng and Nomedjoh Community Forests by the public and statutory bodies is strong and undisputed. There are no disputes over the lands concerned and no contestation of the rights of the communities to manage these lands. The Nkolenyeng Community Forest  is a fully recognised Community Forest with all of the associated legal rights. The Nomedjoh community holds customary rights over the Nomedjoh forest to grow perennial and subsistence crops and to carry out livelihood activities
including hunting, gathering, fishing and small scale artisan logging of timber for their local use. The process of registering the Nomedjoh Community Forest has reached an advanced stage.

Reference levels

CED has facilitated the training of community field workers and members in a variety of technical aspects, including mapping, biomass inventories, methods for monitoring changes to forest cover, participatory threat assessment and mapping, and the identification and implementation of agricultural and agroforestry activities. Additionality will be measured in terms of additional forest protection, and financial, technical and institutional improvements. 

Safeguards

Sustainable management of the forests is expected to bring about greater social and ecological resilience as well as a reduction in poverty through the generation of – and payment for - ecosystem services.

MRV

There is no national MRV strategy but community field workers are involved in monitoring activities.

Reference Level

Projected

Land Tenure Before Implementation

Collective/customary tenure

Land Tenure After Implementation

Collective/customary tenure

Financing