The "Livelihoods Day" has focused on action through examples, best practices and learning from challenges. The purpose was to offer the opportunity to grassroots organizations and experts to share their achievements and best practices on large-scale restoration and agroforestry projects, participatory approach with local communities, carbon and biodiversity management, food security and livelihoods enhancement. The Livelihoods Day has provided a wide range of concrete examples and a platform of interactions and exchanges between COP participants from all relevant fields. Several initiatives, such as the Livelihoods Fund, the TEEB study and the Bonn Challenge have been showcased to explain how they are playing an important role in terms of results on the ground and concrete positive effects for both livelihoods and biodiversity conservation.
The Livelihoods Day aimed to have an impact beyond the meetings in international conferences and urged the decision makers to adopt resolution and policies which will help international organizations and local NGOs to have tangible impacts on the ground. It aimed as well to help all the relevant stakeholders find concrete solutions to implement sustainable carbon capture projects with community benefits. Bernard Giraud, President of the Livelihoods Venture, closed the Livelihoods Day affirming that to reach scale, simplicity is needed. He stressed the importance of trust-building, balancing short-and long-term benefits, community ownership and capacity building of project developers as key to guaranteeing successful biodiversity and development projects.
Outcomes of the Livelihoods Day
A common website focusing on biodiversity and human well-being and biodiversity for poverty eradication and development will be developed between different partners. This web platform is designed to gather all the relevant projects worldwide covering the above-mentioned issues and can be found here.
The discussions at the livelihoods days resulted in four key words that are seen as success factors for the implementation of restoration and conservation projects (PAs) aiming at providing biodiversity and community benefits as well as climate change mitigation effects:
1. Local Ownership
It is crucial that local communities take ownership of a project rather than forcing them to implement any particular project or to change their practices. In this sense, a community-based management approach should be applied
2. Local Needs
Fulfilling primary needs first: it is absolutely necessary to secure the primary needs of the community, including its basic survival needs such as food, water and sanitation. Stakeholders have to be committed to making sure that, from the start, the community has the benefit of what it produces. Once these basic needs of subsistence are fulfilled, the extra production from implemented projects could be additional revenues for community developments.
3. Ecosystem services
Knowing the potential values of the ecosystems services: depending on the areas and the type of ecosystem: it is necessary to evaluate what are the keys ecosystem services which can create benefits for the local communities.
Monitoring the quantity of carbon sequestered and the avoided carbon emissions on one hand through the project activities following certified methodologies (CDM) for large-scale carbon restoration projects and on the other hand through efficient management of the protected areas (both marine and terrestrial protected areas)
4. Value Chain
Consultation and information sharing between all links in the value chain, including local stakeholders’ consultation and using the Food Chain as a central driver to improve Livelihoods of local communities.
For more information please contact Olivier Hasinger.