When carbon forestry hits the ground running: who is winning or losing?

I first encountered the idea of carbon offsetting in 2018 when I did my bachelor thesis, looking at REDD+ projects in Vietnam. My interest grew stronger – I wanted to understand more about how carbon offsetting operates on the ground. In 2022, I got the opportunity to do fieldwork in Tanzania for my MSc thesis as part of the research project “We plant trees in Africa” – Swedish discourses and local effects of carbon forestry projects in African localities.

During my fieldwork, I spoke to many people in different villages, and most of them expressed their appreciation for the benefits of trees, such as shade, wind-blocks and firewood. As I delved deeper into the projects they were involved in and the reasons behind being paid to plant trees, I noticed a pattern that corresponded to problems raised by researchers in numerous studies.

Tree planting projects in Africa

Carbon offsetting projects, especially tree planting projects known as carbon forestry, are increasing. Africa is one of the most targeted areas where international actors invest in carbon forestry projects as a way to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions.

Apart from sequestering carbon, many carbon forestry projects set out to reduce poverty. In many cases, small-scale farmers are being paid to plant trees on their land. When the trees grow big enough, the farmers can cut off branches to get firewood or harvest the trees to get timber. This is a good solution that would benefit small-scale farmers while mitigating climate change, in theory. However, research shows that these so-called win-win solutions seldom succeed, and that the wishes and needs of the local communities frequently take a backseat.

Lack of inclusion of local people

A recurring issue is that project implementers lack the necessary knowledge about or interest in understanding, the local context. Many projects claim to work closely with local communities, yet they often have a top-down approach where communication insufficiencies may exclude community members. For example, information is sometimes provided in a language not spoken by the local community. In other cases, project participants have very limited possibilities of reaching out to project representatives to ask questions as they are seldom present in the project areas.

Various studies, including mine, indicate that project implementers tend to withhold information from project participants. In some cases, they are not even informed about the carbon offsetting element of the project. Some project initiators argue that the carbon business is too complicated for local communities to grasp. However, this lack of communication can lead to confusion about what people are actually being paid for, as well as any changes to payment due to market fluctuations.

In my conversations, I realized that most people I spoke to had never come across the word “carbon”. Many said they had been told that trees harvest air and that planting more trees is good for the environment.  They also mentioned receiving financial incentives to plant trees, but none knew they participated in a global trading system. Without this crucial information, planning effectively and making informed decisions about the trees on one´s land becomes challenging.

Projects anchored in the local context, where implementers recognise the local knowledge and structures, are more likely to benefit the local people. These initiatives invest in having representatives nearby, enabling two-way communication with residents. However, since these projects are more expensive and difficult to scale up, they tend to be less common.

Are all tree-planting projects bad for local people?

While many carbon forestry projects often overlook local community involvement, some have successfully benefitted these communities. Frequently, these projects focus on agroforestry where small-scale farmers are trained to plant trees together with food crops. In some cases, this approach has boosted farmers’ yields and improved the local climate by providing shade and maintaining soil moisture.

Other types of projects also focus on benefiting local communities without the carbon offsetting element. During my fieldwork, I met some people involved in a project that taught them how to prune living stumps. This practice allowed the stumps to regrow into trees, providing firewood without planting new ones. This also reduced the need for water, as the stumps could absorb water through their root systems. In some areas, participants were trained to dig trenches in their farmlands to save rainwater. Almost everyone I spoke with who implemented this technique mentioned that their harvest nearly doubled.

Where do we go from here?

Research indicates that carbon forestry does not work as it is often presented since the carbon uptake in vegetation operates in the so-called slow carbon cycle, whilst fossil fuels operate in the long carbon cycle. Researchers have contested the idea of compensating our emissions for quite some time, as the term can be misleading. We know that reducing emissions is key to mitigating global warming.

If you are looking to support projects that focus on local benefits and nature conservation without solely relying on carbon forestry, numerous  NGOs are collaborating with local organisations. These NGOs focus on improving the livelihoods of local people even without the carbon offsetting element.

 If you are considering investing in carbon forestry, choose projects that actually benefit local communities in a just way. This guide, created by Flora Hajdu and Linda Engström, both researchers at SLU, is a helpful tool for consumers, companies and actors involved in carbon forestry. It provides questions to ask and warning signs to look out for when investigating whether a carbon forestry project will positively impact local people.

This text is written by Therese Engvall, research assistant at the Department of Urban and Rural Development, MSc in Rural Development and Natural Resource Management at SLU.

The text is based on he master thesis and the text “Är klimatkompensation genom trädplanteringsprojekt verkligen bra för lokalbefolkningen?” published in Tidskriften Ikaros in June 2024.