EnglishClimate change threatens life on this planet. Given the climate emergency, we need solutions that are inclusive and that can bring benefits to local livelihoods. Rural farmers are often excluded from high-powered carbon finance programs, but they often have unique knowledge and experience managing and cultivating forests. Many do this by using their machetes to assist natural forest growth.
Paso Pacífico’s machete project will gather expertise from small-scale rural farmers on the use of machetes to assist natural forest regeneration by removing vines, grasses and lianas from naturally growing trees. The program will also bring in farmer knowledge and technical resources on management cuttings from sprouts and stems to plant and grow trees quickly. These materials will be compiled and edited as an illustrated training manual. We will pilot this manual with 1000 farmers, helping them plant 20,000 trees.
We are now developing an app to help crowdsource and compensate reforestation by rural tropical farmers. The app will be deployed in that pilot program that will connect tech-savvy young people and experienced rural farmers. After piloting, this app and program can then be refined and scale across the tropics, leading to hundreds of millions of new trees that help save our planet.
The training manual and work with 1000 farmers across Central America will lay the groundwork to scale up this approach to reach one million farmers in the region. As farmers are empowered to use their knowledge and tools to plant trees and grow small forests, they can reap the multiple benefits including food, timber, and ecosystem services. If 1 million farmers were to plant 3 trees each, we could store 1 million tonnes of carbon and elevate the role of the farmers as climate heroes.
We are deeply grateful to SoftServe, Ashoka, Societal Thinking, and our many project advisors for their generous help so far!
