Financing afforestation in Africa, an effective measure to combat climate change

Agriculture in Uganda

If we want to stop or at least not aggravate climate change, one of the things we should do is stop felling trees. These plants absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is one of the most important greenhouse gases. But that can be an unfeasible solution, especially considering that human beings, regardless of where they live, usually want to evolve and have better living conditions.

Still, an experiment conducted in Africa and published in the journal Science, has revealed that Giving modest sums of money to small farmers can help fight climate change.

In many developing countries, such as Uganda (Africa), poverty reduction and efforts to preserve the environment go hand in hand, but sometimes taking the necessary measures is not easy. 70% of Ugandan forests are on private land, much of which belongs to poor owners who, in order to survive, tend to cut down trees to engage in agriculture.

So Seema Jayachandran, an economist at Northwestern University, and Joost de Laat, an expert from the Dutch NGO Porticus, got together with the US NGO Innovations for Poverty Action to carry out an experiment that consisted of offer US $ 28 (about 24 euros) per year per hectare of forest to 60 Ugandan villages with a single condition: that they do not deforest the forest for two years. It may seem like very little money, but you have to bear in mind that the land there is very cheap.

Trees in Uganda

The results were encouraging. After two years, in the villages that had not joined the program, 9% of the trees had been cut down, but in those that had received incentives, there were between 4 and 5% less. In other words, they continued to deforest, but much less.

This equals 3.000 tons of CO2 less that were emitted into the atmosphere, which is certainly very interesting. According to Annie Duflo, director of the NGO Innovations for Poverty Action, this experiment will help fight climate change, while protecting threatened habitats and helping small farmers.

You can read the study here.


Be the first to comment

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: Miguel Ángel Gatón
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.