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Table 2 Summary of case studies of climate-smart landscape initiatives

From: From climate-smart agriculture to climate-smart landscapes

 

Rice subsector of Madagascar

Great Green Wall Initiative

Degree Celsius Wet Tropics Project

Motivation

Climate threats to rice sector productivity; land degradation exacerbates challenges. The initiative promotes an integrated approach to building resilience.

Land degradation and drought are primary threats in the region. The goals of the initiative are to combat desertification and poverty.

Deforestation and heavy fertilizer use contribute to land degradation and cause greenhouse gas emissions. There is now access to a carbon market.

Land use and management

Implementing and improving a suite of land uses, including highland forest, agroforest, pasture, and lowland rice and crops, to build resilience for rice systems (model for integrated resilient rice)

Planned as a mosaic of land uses, to manage the tradeoffs between multiple uses, and integrate people’s livelihood objectives into the management of different ecosystems

Regional natural resource management (NRM) plans include spatially-specific priorities for sustainable land management, and account for upstream and downstream land and water interactions

Governance and intersectoral mechanisms

Recent political instability, but decentralization and building local capacity are important components of projects. The initiative will also support the creation and operation of an interministerial and multi- stakeholder platform on resilience.

Many levels of governance are involved, from regional to local. Resource tenure is weak or fragmented and is one of the constraints the initiative plans to address, particularly by strengthening local institutions and traditional rights systems, and targeting areas with strong tenure.

Decentralized decision making and strong tenure systems are in place. Multiple sectors, ministries, and stakeholders at various scales are involved in the development and implementation of the NRM plans.

Financing of initiative

Adaptation Fund provides funding for initiative activities, which also link to projects funded by other organizations

Global Environment Facility (GEF) funds specific focal areas. The Least-Developed Country Fund (LDCF) and Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) also provide support. GEF serves as coordinating entity to pool resources for initiative.

The regional NRM body receives funding from government and private sector actors, which then go towards implementation of the activities in the plans. Aggregated carbon offsets, sold to carbon markets, fund mitigation activities.

Tracking change

A set of targets and indicators has been developed for the nearly 14,000 km2 covered by the three project sites. No assessment has begun.

Performance indicators, such as the increase in land under sustainable land management (SLM), have been identified, and will be aggregated at the portfolio program level. No monitoring is yet underway.

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) protocols are employed to account for carbon sequestration and emissions reduction. There is also a set of performance indicators laid out in the NRM plan.