What is 'tree banking' - and how is it helping this Indian village reach net zero?
来源:World Economic Forum;发表于:2022-03-06;人气指数:321
What is 'tree banking' - and how is it helping this
Indian village reach net zero?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/indian-village-banks-on-tree-mortgages-in-bid-to-go-carbon-neutral/
Farmers in a village in Kerala, India, are trialling a new 'tree banking'
scheme to reach net zero.
Image: Unsplash/Nandhu Kumar
10 Feb 2022
K. Rajendran
Freelance Contributor, Thomson Reuters Foundation
*Farmers in Kerala, India, face ailing businesses, with two decades of
droughts and flooding decimating their yields.
*But one village in the southern Indian state has launched a campaign to
be carbon-neutral by 2025 - and the initiative is helping local farmers too.
*The farmers are paid to plant and look after 350,000 trees in a 'tree
banking' scheme.
*Other areas are now following suit, developing their own net-zero
programmes.
P. K. Madhavan stood proudly next to a young, sturdy mahogany tree, one of
a hundred he planted three years ago on his farm in Wayanad district in the
southern Indian state of Kerala.
Madhavan's two acres (0.8 hectares) of land in Meenangadi village used to
be lush with cash crops - coffee, black pepper and betel nut - but two decades
of drought and unseasonally heavy rain have decimated his yields.
Now the mahogany plantation is one of his only reliable sources of income,
earning him up to 5,000 rupees ($67) a year - and all he has to do is keep the
trees standing.
The 84-year-old farmer is being paid to plant and protect trees through a
"tree banking" scheme, the project at the heart of Meenangadi's
campaign to become India's first carbon-neutral village by 2025.
Madhavan got his saplings for free from Meenangadi's panchayat, or village
council, which will lend him 50 rupees per tree for every year he does not cut
it down until 2031.
At that point, the loan is written off and he can do what he likes with
the trees, including felling them to sell for timber.
"Every morning, I spend some time looking after these trees. I am
really happy to say that except for three (which died naturally), all are
steadfastly growing," Madhavan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Sooner or later, my land will become a small forest filled with
infinite greenery."
Over the past decade, Kerala's farmers have faced an ailing business
struggling with rising temperatures and erratic rains, while deforestation has
caused soil degradation, making their land more vulnerable to flooding and
mudslides.
Wayanad district is suffering more than most, with the Kerala State
Action Plan on Climate Change naming it as one of the state's four
hotspots.
Tree-planting initiatives are taking root worldwide as
governments and corporations look for ways to cut planet-warming emissions, and
fight pollution and land degradation - or simply to earn credits to offset
their carbon emissions.
Since Meenangadi's net-zero programme, others have been inspired to follow
suit.
Image: Unsplash/Guru Moorthy Gokul
But many projects fail when they rely on locals with little time or money
to look after newly planted trees.
Meenangadi's tree-banking project avoids that pitfall by giving farmers an
ongoing incentive to protect trees, said C. Jayakumar, executive director of
Thanal, a local environmental group helping implement the village's
carbon-neutral programme.
"The message here is that climate change is being linked with climate
justice," he said.
"Usually, it will take a farmer one or two decades to get the financial
benefits of planting a timber tree sapling. With this project, the farmer gets
money from the start."
Money grows on trees
When Meenangadi started its carbon-cutting journey in 2016, an energy
audit indicated the village population of 33,450 was generating 15,000 tonnes
of excess carbon every day.
To help bring that number down to zero within the next four years, the aim
is to plant at least 350,000 trees to soak up carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, said K.E. Vinayan, president of the village council.
A farmer who joins up is given tree saplings grown in the council's
nursery or donated by the Kerala Forest Department.
Ranging from trees for timber and fruit to bamboo, most are native species
chosen for their ability to absorb large amounts of carbon and withstand wild
weather swings, as well as to generate an income for farmers once they mature,
Vinayan said.
Three years after planting, the farmer can mortgage the trees for a
10-year interest-free loan from the council which only has to be paid back if
any of the trees are cut down.
If a tree dies due to disease, heavy rain or drought, the farmer continues
to receive money for it, Vinayan added.
So far, 780 farmers have enrolled in the scheme and the village has
planted 172,000 saplings, including on vacant lots and those handed out to
farmers who support the net-zero push but do not want to join the tree-banking
project.
It has already distributed 350,000 rupees in the first tranche of loans,
with the second tranche coming soon, boosted by a 100 million-rupee grant from
Kerala state.
While a first survey is still underway, Vinayan said as far as he knows,
none of the trees have been cut down.
But it is vital that farmers be allowed to use their trees however they
want at the end of their loan period, because "they are the real owners
and custodians of the trees", he noted.
"We don't want to permanently infringe on their rights," he
said.
The council will regularly review the project with a view to extending the
mortgage period or launching a new scheme to incentivise farmers to preserve
their plantations, he added.
Village inspiration
Even if most farmers joining Meenangadi's project decide to leave their
trees standing, many environmentalists warn tree-planting drives are not
nearly enough to slow planetary warming.
G. Balagopal, an environmentalist and committee member of scientific
organisation Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad, said he supported the
tree-banking scheme but it had limitations.
"Climate change is a global phenomenon - it can't be mitigated by
massive tree-planting in a particular region," he said.
The benefits of planting trees are cancelled out if the carbon they pull
from the air is replaced by greenhouse gases coming from cars, household
heating and power sources, he said.
"The need of the hour is new (green) technology like solar," he
added.
Meenangadi council members said they were looking at other ways to bring
down carbon emissions, including shifting to solar lighting and electric
vehicles and using high-efficiency stoves.
And the village's climate ambitions are spreading. The governing council
for Sulthan Batheri Block, the district sub-division where Meenangadi is
located, launched its own net-zero programme in January.
"Meenangadi's carbon-neutral mission has really inspired us,"
said C. Assainar, president of the Sulthan Batheri Block Panchayat.
For Madhavan in Meenangadi, the village's plan offers hope that he and his
fellow farmers could help calm the erratic weather that has turned Wayanad
district from an agricultural champion to a region in crisis.
"I hope the ongoing carbon-neutral campaign will help us recapture
our past glory," he said.