Climate Change and Forests: Emerging Policy and Market Opportunities

Case Study: The San Nicol

The San Nicolás Project in Colombia was designed to address the following questions, among others: How can CDM projects improve the living conditions of the rural poor? Are there examples that demonstrate this potential? And what makes a real difference for the rural poor? The San Nicolás valleys lie in the northwest of the Antioquia region in Colombia . The region belongs to the area of influence of the Corporación Autónoma Regional de los Rios Negro y Nare, or CORNARE. The region’s strategically important watersheds and hydrological resources have been subject to the construction of two hydropower dams, which generate more that 30 percent of Colombia’s total electricity. Although natural resources, especially forest and water related, are vital to the development of the region, they have been seriously degraded in recent decades. During the 1990s CORNARE recognized the increasing need to ensure sustainable management of its natural resources, especially forests. As a consequence, in 1998 CORNARE agreed to a legal instrument (Agreement 016) with all the municipalities of the region, establishing 40,000 hectares for forest conservation and 32,000 hectares for multiple forest uses, including plantations. As a means of enforcing this agreement and promoting the sustainable use of forest resources, CORNARE partnered with the Swiss Federal Institute for Material Testing and Research to develop the project “Alternative financing model for case study The San Nicolás Project in Colombia carmenza robledo and patricia tobón 122 sustainable forest management in San Nicolás.” In 1999 a project proposal was presented to the International Tropical Timber Organization, and Switzerland, Japan, and the United States agreed to cofinance it. The first phase of the project lasted from 2001 to 2004. It was clear to the project partners from the beginning that in addition to technical matters, the project needed to address the socioeconomic situation of the communities. More than 12,000 families live in the nine municipalities covered by the San Nicolás Project’s 72,000 hectares, at elevations ranging from 800 to 3,000 meters. A process called the Regional Forum was thus created to promote capacity-building, discussion, and decisionmaking for the project. As part of the Regional Forum, more than 170 meetings and workshops were organized with the farmers and with industry partners and municipalities. The Regional Forum was designed around three main phases: information, participation , and decisionmaking. The first phase, information, aimed to familiarize all potential local actors with the project, including communities, industry, and policymakers at the regional and local levels. On the basis of comments received from these groups, specific needs and requirements were assessed and future project activities were adapted accordingly. The second phase of the Regional Forum, participation, was aimed at exchanging knowledge and expectations about future land uses according to the institutional agreements (including Agreement 016) and the needs expressed by the community. During this phase all forestry activities were analyzed by project experts together with members of the community, using a social mapping methodology . A clear need for community capacity-building related to management practices for new forestry activities and to entrepreneurship was identified. The project responded by designing and implementing a capacity-building program, which has been supported by local research and education institutions. All the information collected during these first two phases allowed the project team to elaborate a detailed forest management plan. The plan, together with the analysis of forest cover and trends, enabled the carbon potential of the project to be quantified. The third phase of the Regional Forum, decisionmaking, was aimed at ensuring a participative decisionmaking process among small and medium-size farmers, NGOs, municipalities, regional institutions, and the private sector. The main issues to be agreed upon in this phase were the forest management plan and the creation of an institution to leverage the implementation of the plan and facilitate the trade of all products and services, including carbon sequestration. In 2008 the project region has a master forest development plan designed with and adopted by the local farmers. It integrates a CDM reforestation component that includes the use of timber and nontimber products, as well as a conservation case study: colombia 123 component. The CDM component includes agroforestry, silvopastoral, and small plantation activities. The project prepared a baseline and monitoring methodology that has been already approved by the Executive Board of the CDM (ARAM 009). As a response to the...