Forest & Climate Change News | Bangladesh | Perú | Malawi | Nigeria

December
Forest & Climate Change Newsletter
Riparian Forest Management | Mangrove Restoration | Agroforestry | REDD+ | NTFPs
Center for Sustainable Development 
 
THIS MONTH’S NEWS: Follow links to see detailed information about community needs assessments & project solutions.
1.  Bangladesh: Participatory Riparian Forest Management Program
3,100 community members of Koliapara village are suffering from the loss of livelihoods, cattle and land for cultivation due to increased flooding.
 
 
 
Kanika Chakraborty (Bangladesh), Susan Wasubire (Uganda), Lauriane Cayet (Reunion) and Doris Kaberia (Kenya) began developing a project with a disaster risk reduction component in Bangladesh in July.

A participatory riparian forest management program is included in the project design to build the resilience of the community and enhance their capacity to deal with the challenges of recurring disasters.
2.  Perú: Participatory restoration & conservation of a fragile mangrove ecosystem
Sylviane Bilgischer (Belgium/ Perú), Roberta Colombano (Italy/Netherlands), and Carolina Quiroz (Mexico) began developing a project to restore and conserve a fragile Mangrove ecosystem in a village in Perú in January.
 
 
The members of El Bendito are finding it difficult to maintain productive livelihoods due to an increasingly stressed mangrove ecosystem linked to climate change challenges.

Theirs is a protected area for the conservation of mangroves and the community lives through the extraction of hydro biological products—so it is in their interest to restore and conserve the mangrove forest.
 
3.  Agroforestry and Conservation Agriculture for Malawi Food Security
Jo Thomas (UK/Malawi) and Marina France (US) began developing a food insecurity project in May in the Phalula Village in Malawi.
 
 
 
 

770 families face food insecurity as a result of land degradation and soil erosion (largely from deforestation) as well as climate change linked rainfall patterns.

 Our partners developed an agroforestry income generation program that looks first at identifying markets before choosing agricultural products to plant.

4.  Forest Reserve Nigeria: REDD+ | NTFPs | Climate Smart Agroforestry
Bridget Nkor (Nigeria), Jason Yapp (Malaysia/UK) & Donatella Fregonese (Italy/UK) began developing a project with the indigenous Buanchor community who are the custodians of the Afi Forest Reserve—a habitat for gorilla—and biodiversity hotspot.
The community is suffering from a loss of environmental services provided by the forest due to forest encroachment and poaching.

The adaptation project includes the development of Non-Traditional Forest Products, a REDD+ forest stewardship program, and a climate smart agroforestry program.
In July partners Michael Chew (Australia/Bangladesh), Sabrin Sultana (Bangladesh), and Elijah Mujuri (Kenya) began developing a project with 1,245 people of the village of Putiajani, Bangladesh who are frequently affected by flooding and river erosion caused by the cutting  down of trees.
After thoroughly researching potential project activities our Bangladesh partners developed a project which includes a Participatory Community Afforestation Program.
6. 300 Hands-On Field Activities for Community Based Adaptation Projects: Water is the Underlying Theme
I am announcing an updated  compilation of Community Based Adaptation Field Activities—complete with links to source materials and technical information.
 
This collection of 300 CBA field activities began as a resource for our CBA online students. However, as it grew, we decided that it was important to make it more broadly available to CBA development practitioners.
 
Here are how the activities are organized:
1. Agriculture and water.
2. Small island developing states.
3. Emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction.
4. Energy.
5. Livelihood.
6. Health & sanitation.
7. CBA project design.
8. CBA participatory inclusion.
9. Long-term investments.
10. General resources.
7. Help Scale Up Project Successes: Help Us Increase Impact to 200,000 Beneficiaries by December 31.
Help us to scale-up these impacted-oriented courses and their resulting projects. In the courses’ first 21 months 500 people from 320 organizations in 113 countries have developed and are developing projects impacting 170,000 people. Help us scale up the reach of our courses so that a much greater number of students can begin projects and increase this impact to 200,000 people by year’s end.
HOW:
1. NETWORKING.
Please spread the word about our courses to your friends/colleagues through your blog, your newsletter or your Facebook page—or by ‘liking’ & commenting on this post on our Facebook Page.  Please consider providing a link to our Online Learning page on your website.
 
2. SCHOLARSHIPS.
Consider making a scholarship donation for field staff who can’t afford course fees.
 
3. ENROLL.
Would you like to improve an existing project or learn from scratch how to design, fund and launch a community based project that can provide sustainable solutions for adaptation to climate change and disaster risk reduction? Student projects have utilized 175 different kinds of solution oriented activities to help address community need. Scan the list of activities to see which ones would work for your project.
 
Choose a course appropriate for you project and during the course we will connect you to scientific documentation, workshop lesson plans, and how-to manuals and field guides.
 
To learn about other student projects in real time, please visit our Facebook Page; or visit the  CSDi Development Community to see their regular postings—and join 600 colleagues in sharing resources & collaborating online.
 
Visit Online Learning to see a full listing of January 2012 Quarter, Community Based courses that begin on January 10.
 
Call for CBA project case studies:
Do you have a community-based adaptation to climate change project that you would like to feature in a new Earthscan book from Routledge? ‘A Field Guide to Community-Based Adaptation’, Tim Magee, will be published in the summer of 2012. For case study submission requirements, please write: Online.Learning@csd-i.org .
What’s happening in the region where you live?
Please write us with your stories, thoughts and comments through Online.Learning@csd-i.org or post them at our Facebook Page, or on the Center’s Blog.
 
Like us: CSDi Facebook.
 
I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Sincerely,
 
Tim Magee, Executive Director
 
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The Center for Sustainable Development specializes in providing sound, evidence-based information, tools and training for humanitarian development professionals worldwide. CSDi is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.