The Greater Gola landscape: connecting forest and people

Sustainable funding for conservation can be delivered through a variety of mechanisms

Local people enjoy the benefits as a result of conserving Gola forest. (PHOTO: ©M. Hulme)

Awareness raising with school children on the importance of forests. (PHOTO: ©H. Chisholm/RSPB)

The greater Gola landscape: connecting forest and people

For the first time in West Africa, a biodiversity conservation project has entered the world of carbon trading. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) Gola Forest project prevented the emission of 1.19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) between 2012 and 2014. After five years, it has earned carbon credits and created social benefits for local communities, having been successfully validated and verified by independent auditors. Now, a company or individuals that have already made significant efforts to reduce their emissions can offset their remaining emissions by purchasing Gola’s verified carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market. It is intended that this mechanism continues to finance sustainably the globally important work of conserving the Gola Rainforest.

REDD+ is a vital mechanism for countries with biologically and carbon rich tropical rainforests but that rank low on life expectancy, education and income per capita. Poor developing nations need to achieve economic development without exhausting their forest resources such as timber. A mechanism such as REDD+ puts a financial value on forest carbon which can be internationally traded; sales are used to pay for conservation of the forest, its wildlife and the livelihood development of the local communities.

The REDD+ Gola Forest project focused not only within but also outside the Gola Rainforest, where threats to the forest will emerge and extremely poor people live. Approximately 24,000 people living in 122 forest edge communities are directly dependent on the natural resources the forest provides. Empowering them as stewards of the forest with economic security improves their livelihoods. This will increase their income by marketing their rainforest-friendly cocoa plantations’ output, improving other agricultural practices and setting up microcredit schemes and education. These are small but encouraging beginnings towards sustainable development. In addition to their carbon conservation importance, areas around the Gola Rainforest act as corridors between forest fragments, critical to wide ranging species such as Forest Elephants.