Carbon Livelihoods Trust

Envirotrade's Carbon Livelihoods Programme addresses poverty alleviation, sustainable development and bio diversity conservation while also tackling global warming in conservation areas recovering from protracted conflict. It is a new way of doing business which offers a new way of life for individuals, forest communities, and the natural environment. The Carbon Livelihoods model has been developed from the world-wide trade in carbon offsets pioneered by the Kyoto treaty on Climate Change and growing recognition of the valuable role that Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) can play in development and conservation. Local farmers and forest communities manage the planting and growth of trees in return for proceeds from the sale of CO2 offsets to customers in the developed world using the Plan Vivo methodology developed by the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Management.

The Carbon Livelihoods Programme in Mozambique enables individuals and companies to effectively invest in new forests and agroforestry that will absorb the carbon dioxide generated by their business activities. Envirotrade works with forest farmers to change the way their land is used and help them to boost their crop yields by the cultivation of nitrogen-fixing trees and plants, which enrich the soil and slow down deforestation. Communities manage fire and forest resources in a sustainable way.

By becoming custodians of forests and trained crop farmers, local people make a significant commitment to their environment. In return, they secure the regular income and stable, sustainable food supply they need to survive. The money they earn from CO2 offset sales allows them to make the switch from ‘slash-and-burn' agriculture to sustainable food production. The revival of agroforestry among impoverished, malnourished communities is giving thousands of people an income and a regular food supply in other communities living in and around national parks in Mozambique . By generating crops that enrich rather than exhaust the fragile forest soils and managing fire in community woodland it is giving a new lease of life to endangered plant and animal species.

The Envirotrade Carbon Livelihoods Programme offers a unique approach to poverty alleviation by building sustainable livelihoods rather than fostering dependence. Purchasers of VER carbon offsets from the programme include The Creative Artists Agency Foundation, the Man Group, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the Carbon Neutral Company, Trans Global Aviation and personalities like the Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood.

A Carbon Trust to Safeguard Carbon Income

The Mozambique Carbon Livelihoods Trust (MCLT) was launched in 2007 to ensure that the community and individual farmer proceeds of carbon offset sales from Carbon Livelihoods projects in Mozambique were safeguarded. Approximately one third of the proceeds of any carbon sale go directly to this fund and are paid out to individual farmers over seven years, to the community trust funds annually and in other payments for forest management and conservation.

The MCLT board is made up of stakeholders - a representative of each elected community association participating in a project, Envirotrade Lda and WWF Mozambique - and is responsible for ensuring that the funds are properly managed and payments made. A Beira based auditing company, Contabil, are responsible for the day to day administration of the fund. The Trust will publish an annual report and its transactions will be monitored by BioClimate Research and Development (BR&D), an Edinburgh based organisation responsible for the Plan Vivo certification as part of its ongoing monitoring of standards and requirements for compliance.

The Carbon Livelihoods Trust will work closely with associated community associations to ensure that the sustainable livelihoods are built and that far reaching land-use change takes place in target communities in and around protected areas.