More than 20 districts identified to undergo emission reductions program
THE Ministry of Forestry has identified more than 20 districts within Fiji to undergo the Emission Reductions (ER) Program.
The ER program which is a under arm of the REDD+ program aims to assist communities within Fiji’s 20 districts to implement REDD+ activities in 37,000 hectares of land with the aim of participating in carbon trade.
The REDD+ program was introduced at the United Nations
Forum Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP 16 and it encourages developing countries such as Fiji to contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation actions in the forest sector by undertaking activities that will reduce emissions.
Ministry of Forestry and Fisheries permanent secretary, Pene Baleinabuli, speaking at a recent RED+ workshop in Nadi, said that the Fiji National REDD+ Program had begun in 2009 and it was to assist the communities in Fiji which are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
“The impacts of climate change have been projected to further intensify and pose a threat to Fiji’s sustainable growth; placing large economic, social and physical stress on local communities and ecosystems. Our urgent actions are needed to strengthen our resilience as a community against the impacts brought about by climate change.”
“Fiji’s ER-Program does not prevent nor restrict the forest owners in the use of the land and forest resources to support their immediate and future needs and community-level development plans. The program is merely championing the concept of sustainable development, which means improving the “business as usual” methods to standards that ensure that forests are able to perform its natural ecological function of providing clean water and clean air.”
“In each of the ER-Program activities, trees will either be reintroduced into degraded land systems or retained in its natural state to support the ecological function of the forest. The benefit for landowners, apart from the ecological services, is that the ER-Program provides an alternative income stream, through the carbon payments, if they so wish to participate.”
REDD+ program team leader, Ilaisa Tulele says that Fiji was the only small island developing state to be involved in this program which is supported and financed by the World Bank.
Mr Tulele highlighted that in 2017 the World Bank provided a grant of $5.8 million to help with the implementation of the program.
He said that more than 95 participants will be trained over the next two days to understand the implementation phase of REDD+ in the country.
“These are the key people that will take the message out to the communities and create awareness and help them make informative decisions during their discussions.”
“The 20 districts that we found are vulnerable to a number of facets. They are vulnerable to logging. They were marginalised, probably because of the locality.”
The Fiji’s Forestry ER Program is the first within Fiji to be implemented by the Government and it will end in 2024 with the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).