Implementation | PANORAMA

Key supporting resources for the production of charcoal briquettes towards conserving nature

Retailing Charcoal Briquettes

Use

Farmers. Farmers are the key players in this process for the production of agricultural residues that are used as our raw materials.

Organized transport systems: Raw material sources are always scattered, and they need to be collected and transported to the production facility. This requires consolidating them for easy transportation. There is need for reliable means of transport that have to be used efficiently and effectively

Retail outlets and distribution centers. When briquettes are produced, communities’ members need to be accessing them without any hustles. This requires the recruitment of retailers to stock these products.

Pricing mechanisms. Switching the communities to the new alternative sources of cooking energy requires offering them with reduced price that will attract them. To achieve this, entrepreneurs need to consider minimizing their production costs by analyzing the production process.

Labour intensive. The process of collecting raw materials from farmers is labour intesnsive. Loading and offloading from the trucks also requires labour. Soring of raw materaisl is another area also. Packaging of the product is also labour intensive.

Good rainfall for agricultural residues. Climate changes caused by factors such as deforestation have affected rainfall patterns hence reduced harvests.

Formation of partnerships helps in establishing permanent and reliable sources of raw materials.

Availability of retail outlets that are within the reach of the community members.

Availability of manpower to join the processing of charcoal briquettes which is always regarded as dirty job

To ensure retail outlet coverage, it was learnt that the established sellers of firewood are the best ones to be recruited. They have experience selling firewood and can easily influence their customers to start using charcoal briquettes to save the environment. However, one of the challenges faced is that some retailers see the introduction of charcoal briquettes as a threat to their established business.

Another challenge is that transporters tend to raise their prices once they discover that the waste they are hired to transport are turned into cash. This is where the need for organized transport system matters.

It has been noted that the majority of labour available is from women This provides an opportunity to empower men to do the jobs that would always have been done by men

Implementation

Local

The process of conserving biodiversity through production of Makala charcoal briquettes

Understanding the reasons for forest encroachment: The driving force is the need for firewood. This is caused by the need for cheap sources of cooking energy and the need for employment. To solve these two issues, people resort to cutting down trees for firewood affecting the natural habitat for plants and animals.

Site selection: Consideration is made for site selection that is close to the source of raw materials and the targeted population and building of structures.

Raw Material sourcing. The first step is to consider establishing the potential availability of agricultural waste that can be used in the process of producing the briquettes.

Processing and production This involves sorting and grinding. Then the sorted materials are pressed into briquettes which are then sent for drying and testing to establish durability of the briquettes.

Community involvement: Durability of the briquettes to the community is done through participatory cooking demonstration. Community leaders are invited to explain the benefits.

Biodiversity conservation: When communities become aware of the availability briquettes meeting their cooking and employment needs trees are no longer cut down hence preserving the natural habitats for animals and plants species.

Community awareness is the most important success factor. Other factors include continued availability of the briquettes since any delay to distribute them will lead the community to go back to their old system.

Governments and donor agencies have to come in and support such type of initiatives.

Alternative sources of raw materials. Agricultural residues are seasonal, and this requires collecting huge quantities when they are available or finding substitutes for continued production.

Passion is the driving force. Most of the communities have been rooted in their traditional cultures that forests are the only sources of firewood and income generation. It is hard to convince these people to change. Without passion and commitment, the projects can fail because acceptability takes long.

There is need to offer incentives to the communities such as encouraging them to practice agroforestry business that can be used to conserve rare species of animals and plants that can be used to attract tourists.

One of the challenges is failure to establish partnerships with raw materials suppliers because it becomes hard when the sources are scattered and unorganized.

Implementation

Local

Financing Tree Nurseries

Installation of solar panels in one of HAF's tree nurseries in Guercif, Morocco.

High Atlas Foundation

HAF tree planting event at a nursery in a local primary school.

High Atlas Foundation

HAF nursery caretaker in Morocco.

High Atlas Foundation

The trees that HAF with community partners grow from seeds in nurseries in Morocco are generators of direct revenue from the a) sale of the trees at a subsidized rate to farmers, cooperatives, associations, and education centers, and b) voluntary and credited carbon offsets that are secured with HAF’s monitoring system of the trees that are transplanted from the nurseries, integrating and maximizing the benefits from remote sensing and ground-truthing with community engagement. The sale of carbon credits, in particular, ensures maximum impact - revenue generated by the trees planted is reinvested directly into the communities that grow the trees.

In 2006, HAF established its first community nursery. Since then, HAF has been lent land without cost by the public agencies. HAF first developed regional agreements for land with the Department of Water and Forests, the Ministries of Education and Youth & Sports, universities, the Moroccan Jewish Community, and cooperatives. They are now extending more land to HAF for nurseries. This is key in allowing HAF to provide trees to farmers at subsidized costs so that they may benefit more fully from the future income of the trees they plant.

By gathering data on social benefits related to trees planted, carbon credits can be sold based on not only the environmental benefits but social impact as well. In addition, trainings in local communities are vital for giving members the tools, resources, and confidence to pursue their goals - which often tend to relate to income generation. However, beyond knowledge and skills-building training, cooperative members need guidance on how to utilize not only already-existing resources but also how to collaborate for shared benefit. Participatory planning meetings allow participants to identify common needs and share experiences. By encouraging members of different cooperatives and commuities within one municipality or province to develop a supportive network through the participatory approach, projects such as tree planting can go further in achieving its objectives.

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Finance

Logistic

Capacity building

Sustainable development

Crab Shark Restaurant expansion

Wedding in the mangroves

Dr. Melckzedeck K. Osore

Crab Shack Restaurant has become the icon of DCCG. It is reknown for its iconic samosa pastry deliciously made from crabs harvested in locally fabricated traps.

Expansion of the restaurant through funds obtained from KCDP under HMP has lead to:

Attract more visitors for celebration, events.
Job opportunity for the local communities especially the youth.
Crab Shark restaurant attracts tourists from the nearby hotels to come and experience the unique atmosphere in the mangroves, crabs are reared in cages in the streams within the mangroves

Assured support from Kilifi County Government.
More visitors both local and foreign.
Job opportunity to the local communities especially the youth.
Increased canoe rides to experience sundowner and bird-watching.

The fact that DCCG have made agreements with the management of tourist hotels located in Watamu area and Malindi town has allowed to place the Crab-Shark restaurant in the tourists visit itinerary, giving in this way greater notoriety to the mangrove through its restaurant. Working together with other businesses in the area generates efficient alliances to make the project successful.

Implementation

Local

Alternative conservation-linked livelihoods

Developing working, alternative conservation-linked livelihoods is the lifeline of conservation initiatives that incur financial burdens.

The idea of initiating ecotourism as an alternate livelihood emerged while conducting biodiversity surveys. We observed that the communities especially the hunters and the youth had a keen eye to spot wildlife as well as good understanding of the forest in general. That's when the youth were trained in documentation of flora and fauna by experts. Sightings were recorded in field registers and this created a community of conservationists among the youth. By documenting unique, rare or special fauna, these surveys acted as a catalyst to attract ecotourists from far and wide.

Thus, the youth, along with the hunters dependent on hunting for subsistence from the three pilot villages, were targeted and trained as nature guides with other trainings in association with Air BnB and Titli Trust on hygiene and environment care in homestays, safety and security, housekeeping service, and food and beverage service, maximizing sales and managing money, and low cost marketing.

Through website and advertisements on bird and butterfly enthusiast groups in India, biodiversity meet's were organised to bring in ecotourists and promote ecotoursim.

Livelihood option in form on Ecotourism was successful to an extent. Not only did the presence of the visitors aided in boosting nature-based ecotourism, but also the biodiversity assessments further added to the knowledge of the faunal biodiversity. The visitors participated in the biodiversity surveys, stayed in local homestays in the villages of Sukhai and Khivikhu, tasted sumptuous local cuisine, watched the traditional Sema dances and engaged with the local community to understand their activities to conserve their natural resources.

The training of youth in biodiversity assessments and sustainable use of natural resources, as well as the training and capacity building of local community members as nature guides for ecotourism, has resulted in enhanced livelihood opportunities with the steady flow of tourists that are visiting this area to spot ‘bird and butterfly specials’. Now the communities take pride in actively conserving the local biodiversity and overall landscape. Many of the species that were rare to sight have made a comeback as communities continue to patrol and conserve their CCA.

However, these are very remote landscapes with very poor road connectivity and hence depsite having tremendous biodiversity and artisitc homestays, very few ecotourists rather the only hardcore bird watchers or butterfly enthusiasts have shown interest to visit these areas. In future, if the road connectivity is improved then it may lead to better opportunities of earning and promoting ecotourism for the local communities. This has further motivated the communities, including those from neighboring villages, to take up conservation and protect their natural resources

Implementation

Documentation and dissemination of results

Review phase

Local

Involvement of local community, future plans sustainability

Arriving for an official meeting

Dr. Melckzedeck K. Osore

For sustainability of DCCG and long term community benefit, the group has focalised in the following actions:

Construct eco-friendly accommodation facilities on their land adjacent to the creek.
Introduce environmental friendly means of transport for ease of access to the restaurant and board-walk.
Introduce computer learning centre in order to build capacity of the youth.
Explore new ideas to increase jobs opportunities to the community;
Extend beach clean-up to cleaning the street of Watamu.
Contribute to the education bursary kitty to educate students in the local schools.

Partnership with the national Government, KMFRI, KWS, KFS in managing the mangrove forests.
Collaboration with local and international NGOs such as WWF, KWETU and National projects e.g. KCDP, KEMFSED all have created strong linkages for sustainability.

Generating partnerships allows to achieve the objectives in a more solid and efficient way and creating strong linkages for sustainability.

Implementation

Local

Training programs for the environmental conservation

Preparing for an excursion

Dr. Melckzedeck K. Osore

Training DGGC members and the local community on environmental conservation is for the purpose of empowering the people to protect and conserve the environment for prosperity and sustainable use. Training is offered by Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and various NGOs. The training has resulted in:

Restoration of various mangroves species through reforestation programmes
Stopping illegal methods of fishing, including use of poison and nets of small mesh size
Reduction of fishing pressure from Mida Creek
Sustaining Malindi-Watamu World Biosphere Reserve as part of the Marine Protected Areas of the Kenya coast.

Majority of the community members have accepted the training programs. The community is now collaborating with trainers to create environmental awareness, which is a very important element to achieve the objective of this project.

Visits by students from school, universities and colleges, tour guides on boat rides and bird watching trips have been great ways to help raise awareness about environmental issues.

Using the local Kiswahili language to explain to the community has yield in the faster results.

Implementation

Local

Biodiversity conservation

Conservation agreements allow establishing commitments in surveillance and control activities through community surveillance, helping to conserve the SNM and at the same time reducing financial gaps for this purpose.

The benefits that can be generated through the agreements help establish commitments to support biodiversity conservation strategies in the Sanctuary and its buffer zone.
Ongoing communication with the associations and communities provides information on the entry of third parties that want to carry out illegal activities.

The effort to produce cocoa sustainably has an impact on conservation actions at the landscape level and has great potential for expansion, as conditions have been created that can serve as a model for diversification of production.
It has been essential to build the capacity of the SNM's personnel, especially in terms of how agricultural production aspects are linked to the conservation of the area.

Implementation

Local

Participatory management through agreements

The involvement of agricultural associations and native communities in the buffer zone has made it possible to generate economic benefits for the associations and to protect the SNM through community vigilance.

Farmers perceive an improvement in their income, which ratifies their commitment to contribute to the Sanctuary's conservation.
They are constantly participating in the management committee because they now understand the importance of being involved in the area's planning, which is why they want to be part of the process to update the area's Master Plan.

Environmental governance is only promoted with effective participation in decision making, considering the participation of local stakeholders. In the case of conservation agreements, not only the economic impact on the population was sought, but also how they perceive the benefits of voluntary collaboration among stakeholders, the acceptance and progressive change of attitude regarding the establishment of the area and the leadership of SERNANP.

Implementation

Local