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under a carbon credit management programme, Hurungwe is poised to see its people’s per capita incomes and standards of living significantly rising.
This, of course, can be achieved if the community is fully supportive of this noble programme.
The same holds true for the people of Nyaminyami, Mbire and Binga whose rural district councils have also since signed the same deals with the company for the same cause.
In Hurungwe, the Guernsey-based company, Carbon Green Investments, which specialises in conservation and carbon credit management, has since signed an agreement with the Rural District Council in which the former will carry out a carbon credit management project in the district for the next 30 years.
Under the agreement, Carbon Green Investments will work closely with communities in the area in an effort to mitigate deforestation and increase conservation levels.
The green house gas emissions (GHG) or carbon dioxide reduced through such conservation will be quantified and sold as carbon reduction credits on the global market.
These will be sold to major (GHG) emitters like British Airways while the measuring and calculation processes will be carried out periodically.
Out of the revenue realised from the sale of such carbon reduction credits, CGI, HRDC and the community will each get a 30 percent share while the remaining 10 percent will go towards ongoing operational management of the project by entities such as environmental groups operating community outreach projects.
Funds ploughed back into the community will be used to improve the lives of the people mainly through sustainable agricultural projects, such as irrigation programmes among others and construction of schools and clinics.
Officially launching the company’s action plan during a stakeholders meeting at Magunje Growth Point recently, Carbon Green Investments (CGI) chief liaison officer Mr Chris Moore said the project was the brainchild of the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 agreement which compelled developed countries to cut on greenhouse emissions.
The project also focuses on the development and deployment of techniques that can help increase resilience to the impact of climate change.
Mr Moore revealed there was need to conserve the green belts that existed in Africa, Asia and South America as these were serving as mother earth’s lungs at the moment.
Mr Moore who was addressing traditional chiefs, councillors and village heads among others, said it was up to the community and its leadership to decide how revenue realised from the sale of the carbon reduction credits could be used as long as such projects carried a bias on agriculture and education.
The village heads some of whom had claimed they should directly be paid a wage for their services as they acted as foremen in such community- based programmes, were however informed that the project realised community rather than individual effort.
Through the programme, communities are expected to intensify their conservation effort through reforestation programmes, prevention of veld fires and land degradation including use of environment-friendly sources of energy that negate destruction of forests.
The company thus closely works hand in hand with Environmental Management Agency and the Forestry Commission among other stakeholders.
According to Chief Nyamhunga the programme is a very noble one that, apart from discouraging tendencies that are destructive to the environment – realises the owners of the forests- the community – through improvement of their livelihoods.
CGI has also since donated to HRDC, some lap-tops, two motor bikes and several mountain bikes being used in monitoring the programme. The mountain bikes are being used by members of the community while motor bikes are used by council officers during their awareness and monitoring routines.
Hurungwe became the fourth district in the country to run such a project after Mbire, Nyaminyami and Binga districts, which also boasts of tracts of greenbelts qualified into the programme earlier on.
According to Mr Moore determination of the areas with such vast green belts was done through satellite before these four districts with intact forests qualified.
Developed countries are mainly responsible for the obtaining high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity.
As such, the Kyoto protocol places a heavier burden on these nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”
The Kyoto Protocol adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
It sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Zimbabwe is also signatory to the protocol.