These words still resonate in my head while I come back from my meeting with Johannes Schwegler, CEO of Fairventures Worldwide.

Johannes is a wood engineer who has spent his 30s living on the Kapuas riverside, teaching forestry and wood processing to Indonesian students. From his house on stilts, he used to watch huge boats transporting trees older than he could ever been. He was aware that these trees were cut from the primary forest, that they were taken from a peaceful life and brought out of their untouched environment in order to make place for palm oil. Johannes knew that this type of tree harvesting was not sustainable, not only because it ended the life of monumental trees, but also because it disturbed water cycle, increased soil erosion and threatened biodiversity.

An indigenous Dayak woman who joined the program © Fairventures Worldwide

Worried by this unsustainable practice, Johannes decided to take action. He created Fairventures Worldwide, a NGO which empowers farmers with sustainable practices. Unlike many non profit organizations which restore the landscape by planting trees, Fairventures Worldwide sows the seeds of knowledge and good practices in the minds of the Dayak people.

The Dayaks are the native people of Borneo, they traditionally manage the land by cutting the primary forest, burning it and cultivating on the newly deforested area. Fairventures Worldwide prohibits their Dayak partners to use this slash and burn method, for this reason the NGO offers them a sustainable alternative: the agro-forestry.

Farmers care for their trees and crops © Fairventures Worldwide

In an agro-forestry system, crops are cultivated under shade between the trees. To add complexity in this ecosystem and create habitat for the biodiversity, Fairventures Worldwide plants three layers of vegetation. The lower layer on the ground supports peanuts or local vegetable crops, the intermediate layer is made of shrubs such as cacao or coffee trees, and the highest layer is made of fast-growing pioneer trees such as Acacias or Albizias. The latter are used to make engineered lightwood products.

Booth, panels and glued laminated timber made of Sengon at the Trade Expo of Jakarta © Fairventures Worldwide

With the design of new products, such as the lightwood, the non-profit improves the lightwood value chain and introduces it to the Indonesian and global market. Moreover it is in touch with buyers looking for sustainable wood and its derived products. The company is also on the way to certify fifty tons of organic peanut they produce each year and thus sell them in Germany.

An App to monitor trees

Johannes is a social entrepreneur therefore he wants to educate and empower Indonesian farmers. For this reason, his organization is currently developing a mobile application to help farmers monitor their trees. This App will enable them to take a photo of the tree trunk, know its diameter and thus the amount of wood in it. By knowing exactly the value of their trees, they will have a better bargaining position when selling the timber. Moreover a precise monitoring of their trees will help farmers get the highest amount of timber by cutting their stand at the optimal harvest time which is yet a widespread practice in Indonesia.

Johannes Schwegler (right), Wolfgang Baum (left) visit a tree nursery operator © Christof Krackhardt/ Brot für die Welt

Thanks to Fairventures Worldwide, about 1000 Dayak farmers have switched their field into an agro-forestry system. These farmers have a sufficient income to live on the timber production and don’t cut the primary forest anymore. The success of this management doesn’t go unnoticed in the region and by word of mouth more farmers are reaching the company to get advice and learn sustainable practices.

The company has almost reached its first goal of planting 1 million trees and is moving toward its second goal: planting 100 million trees. In the future, Johannes also wants to engage in the Orangutan conservation effort. He is starting a partnership with WWF and BOS, the wildlife protection organizations, to connect primate populations by planting nest and food trees on farmers field. Thanks to this wildlife corridor, animals will move between tropical forest patches and access new habitats.

Although we may judge those who deforest, kill biodiversity and contribute to climate change, we often tend to forget that these are sometimes not evil but just people in need – struggling for a daily meal and a future. These are the realities happening in contrast to the European or American ones, where people enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with a 9–5 job, three daily meals and a safe future.

Efforts like the ones done by Fairventures Worldwide help indigenous people find an economic alternative to deforestation. Let it be in the form of agro-forestry or of tropical lightwood like Albazia, families are starting to generate a sustainable income from formerly misused landscapes.

Dayak woman harvesting her chili © Fairventures Worldwide

Written by Thuan SARZYNSKI

The post A German Social Entrepreneur is Saving the Indonesian Tropical Forest appeared first on Global Change Ecology.

Being the only participant from Armenia, I would like to share my experience as well as do my best in involving Armenians in the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15.2 Halting deforestation target.

To halt agriculture or not – that is the question

Since a lot has been said about the conference, I would rather concentrate on its “gaps”. One fundamental statement of the conference was “industrial agriculture is the main driving force of deforestation”.

But first wait. Do we all know what really drives agriculture? Let’s think about those developing countries whose economies mainly depend on agriculture. Would it be possible for a country that cannot even fill their people’s stomachs to start caring about the environment and the future of the planet? I don’t really think so.

Halting deforestation but promoting at the same time Zero Hunger (SDG goal 2.4) may therefore not align at first sight. The Halting Deforestation conference could have addressed this issue better by focusing on people’s current needs rather than on future political agendas. Discussions left out of sight opportunities for agricultural sustainability that maintains ecosystems, strengthens climate change adaptation capacity and extreme weather resilience (droughts, floods, and other disasters) as well as progressive improvement of land and soil quality.

Yes. 80% of deforestation is caused by agriculture,  but for some countries agriculture is the only way to keep their economy running and to secure livelihoods.

Other drivers of deforestation that weren’t assessed

Even though the conference served its purpose by reviewing on-the-ground initiatives to combat deforestation, it didn’t directly reduce the risk of nor provide immediate solutions to deforestation. Evidently, there were some drivers of deforestation left out of the discussion:

• Extractive activities: Industrial logging and mining (private sector representatives largely absent)
  
• Energy and transport: biomass energy questions raised by audience never answered)
  

If not aware of the real dangers yet, we can perhaps make an urgent call with the case of Mining in the Amazon Rainforest.

To halt or not illegal mining in the Amazon

In the Amazon region, logging and mining are the main environmental threats. Both destroy the forest and are slowly converting this major carbon sink into a carbon source, counteracting climate change.

Since 2000, mining in the Amazon region has been actively developed, destroying more than 10% of the Amazon Rainforest. According to the WWF, iron, gold and copper are found in the Amazon forest and the overexploitation of these minerals is increasing dramatically.

Gold mining is however not only bad for the environment but has also chronic socioeconomic consequences. As our Peruvian GCE Student Carla Madueño explains in the following lines:

“Illegal mining in the Amazon is a matter of concern for all. This rainforest is also called green gold that must be cut down so that illegal workers can extract the precious gold contained in the soils of protected forests. The use of highly toxic metals (cyanide, metal oxides, mercury, sulfuric acid) poses an immediate health threat to humans and the entire biome. 

Yes 40 % of our Peruvian Amazon soils are rich in gold, but 100% are rich in green gold (biodiversity and ecosystem services).
That is the real opportunity we must not miss, as it is our own human survival that depends on it.

Peru’s rainforests are rich in gold. That is our blessing and curse. 40% of the soils of the Peruvian Amazon region are estimated to contain gold, which has been transported throughout millenia with erosion mechanisms from the upper Eastern Andes to the lower Western Amazon basin.”

Mining in the Amazon forest is by far not the only example. Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Congo basin, Indonesian forests and the Philippines suffer currently under illegal and unmanaged mining.

Take home message: Youth must halt deforestation

We do believe that youth is the future and a strong driver forwards. Any problem can be solved with the support and efforts of the youth. For instance, the Wijsen sisters banned plastic in Bali and the Dutch boy Boyan Slat is fighting for plastic-free oceans.

We believe international youth organizations such as IFSA and the Youth in Landscapes Initiative are as well brilliant examples of youth caring for the environment and connecting cross-sectoral to the rest of the world to figure out solutions now.

About

Main author Lilith Musinian , co-author Carla Madueño.

Related material

• United Youth to halt deforestation (Blog entry here)
  
• Become an export now! IFSA short course on halting deforestation
• Halting deforestation Photo Gallery by FAO Forestry

The post Shortcomings of the UN Halting Deforestation conference appeared first on Global Change Ecology.

The Capacity Development Workshop held on Monday February 19th, was led by the International Forestry Student Association (IFSA), the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) and trained 50 international Youth delegates on accelerating efforts to halt deforestation. Furthermore, Youth proposals were collected for later High Level UN Political Agendas.

Halting or not halting deforestation, that is the question

Forests are our best asset to combat climate change and they are key in securing food, water and ecosystem services for mankind survival. Despite of their fundamental role to sustain life on this planet, we keep on losing them at terrifying annual rates.

With the current rate of deforestation, there will be no forests left within the next 100 years.

Given that deforestation is in the eyes of a conservationist an ecological tragedy and in the eyes of the investor a money-making opportunity, we need to reconcile these opposing interests.

Youth ideas feed UN Plan for Forests

In order to contribute to and accelerate global forest goals and SDGs, the workshop in the morning of February 19th led by Wageningen University (Netherlands) collected Youth proposals for the Halting Deforestation Conference (CPF). Discussions went about how to have an integrated management of lands at the landscape level: where different actors of society, different land use types and different instutional frameworks are best combined to ensure forests protection and sustainable management.

Desmitifying Gender in Forest Conservation Efforts

After the morning session on the Landscape approach, the noon session led by Taylor Tondelli (FAO) touched with the Youth delegates on the importance of mainstreaming gender in efforts to halt deforestation. To see, what we did exactly, check out the video below.

I found this group dynamic to be extremely mind-opening. Participants had assigned roles. We were all standing in one single line and as Ms. Tondelli would read statements we had to give either a step forward (yes) or backwards (no), depending on whether read power statements matched our roles. Example: one would give a step forward if in the role of a woman community leader one would have “political influence on the community” or a step backwards if “at night one wouldn’t feel secure to walk alone”. At the end of this power dynamic, assigned roles revealed high assymetries in power distribution across different societal actors.

Make our voices heard

Throughout the Capacity Development Workshop Youth delegates worked on global proposals to halt deforestation: ideas ranged from experimental urban jungles, to mainstreaming deforestation through comedy and art and music for collective awareness.

All Youth proposals were collected in the afternoon session by IFSA and GLF Sponsored Youth in Landscapes delegates. Youth Proposals to halt deforestation will contribute to the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2017 – 2030 and will be presented at the 13th Session of the UN Forum on Forests this May.

Finally, selected Youth delegates prepared online content for the IFSA short course on Halting Deforestation. You can see here, what the results of these hours working on solutions are.

Quick links

IFSA Short course on deforestation Check out now (!)

Halting Deforestation Conference

The post United Youth in Rome to halt deforestation appeared first on Global Change Ecology.