The Challenges of Reforesting the Himalayas Through the Clean Development Mechanism: Perspectives from Rural Villages

Abstract

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is intended to mitigate climate change through channelling funds from industrialized countries to elsewhere for projects that diminish greenhouse emissions and promote sustainable development. However, relatively few CDM projects have focused on the forestry sector, due to several challenges related to financial, ecological, and social constraints. This study presents an example of a CDM forestry project in northern India, where some of these challenges have been addressed by taking a more holistic approach through linking the project with other watershed development initiatives, planting diverse locally favoured tree species, and promoting sustainable livelihoods in the involved rural communities. According to the interviews of 120 people in 32 panchayats, the project was generally welcomed and it had provided employment and other livelihood benefits for the villagers. However, as the findings also indicate, the project has largely failed to meet its goals for afforestation/reforestation, because vast amounts of seedlings have either not been planted or they have not survived, certain conflicting interests over the dedicated land areas have not been solved, and the level of participation and knowledge sharing has been low. In most cases, the villagers have lacked financial and other incentives—or have not been aware of these—for becoming committed to the project implementation. As similar challenges have also been found in other CDM projects, it is suggested that the procedures of the carbon forestry initiatives are scrutinized particularly in regard to transparency, knowledge sharing, participation, and monitoring.