Community Forestry International Programs
Thu, Oct 18 2007

Community Forestry International’s (CFI) project on climate change is to involve rural entrepreneurial organizations in managing and marketing environmental and energy services. Forest Protection Committees (VSS) and Self Help Groups (SHGs) in India are already involved in managing watershed restoration contracts and enrichment planting of valuable trees, such as Indian birch (pongamia pinnata) and jatropa. This strategy has multiple advantages in terms of creating terrestrial carbon sinks, providing bio-diesel fuels as an alternative to fossil fuels and thereby offsetting carbon emissions, and reestablishing the hydrological functions of degraded watersheds.

CFI’s projects are designed to create a blueprint for financially sustainable and scalable strategies that enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor by transforming unproductive wastelands into a productive resource, drawing financing for reforestation from carbon credit sales. CFI assists communities to negotiate carbon sequestration contracts with buyers of credits through the brokering.