Compensation of Environmental Resources

CER is established to help the community in restoring biodiversity which has been lost due to anthropogenic activities such as deforestation that accelerate climate change. CER will help the community to reduce the impact of climate change and biodiversity loss by fostering them through sensitization on addressing environmental issues and engaging the community in participatory replantation of trees which are drought tolerant including fruit trees which will be planted to areas of social amenities (schools, health services site, recreation sites). The solution will provide fresh air to the community, fruits for patients, children and other people with no access to food and reduce the CO2 concentration from the atmosphere. The solution will also play a great role globally due to the fact that plant species are good CO2 sinks which reduces CO2 concentration from the atmosphere hence reduce global warming and  climate change.

CER aims to restore biodiversity especially plant species which has been lost due to the result of population growth such as deforestation. According to Rural Energy Agency (2020), country wise the total energy consumption is as follows; 63.5% originate from firewoods, 7.8% from petroleum, 26.2% from charcoal, 3.0% from hydro-power, 5.1% from liquified petroleum gas, and 2.4% from natural gas. This show that, the rate of deforestation is high (annual deforestation rate of about 1%, around 400,000 hectares whereas a quarter is reforested, which is twice the world rate of 5% per year) since about 1,284 households of the Loje community energy sources and needs depend on the natural forests which leads to environmental disturbances. Between 1990 and 2010 Tanzania has lost 19.4% of its forested land, or around 8 million hectares. Despite a relatively high amount of forest stands, there is very little remaining primary forest in the country and the high deforestation rate will quickly lead to widespread clearings (Heist, 2015). CER hopes to enable the community to have access to clean air, fruits, shades, fauna species habitats and raising community awareness on exploiting other sources of energy than fossil fuel in order to achieve a sustainable community.

CER will  provide resource-based  payments that protect, enhance, restore degraded resources to Loje community in Chamwino district of Dodoma Region. The project will collaborate with public institution known as Institute of Rural Development Planning and other NGO’s including Lead Foundation to sensitize the vulnerable community  on addressing environmental issues, manage natural resources (by afforestation and reforestation techniques) and ensure  environmental sustainability. In addition the project will be campaigning against tradition that leads to environmental degradation through social medias, radio, television, podcasts and videos where different people will be able to listen and learn.. CER program will prepare tree nurseries of different species to accommodate the entire solution implementation where tree seedlings will be distributed and planted to the areas forementioned above by the community members and CER program leaders so as to allow an engagement of oneself which will ensure the sustainability of the program. This is a two-year program that will enable community members to acquire environmental knowledge, restoration and improvement of tree species in the course of attaining a sustainable community.

Our primary focus is to help 10,705 community members of Loje Ward located in Chamwino district of Dodoma Region – Tanzania who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and global warming resulted from deforestation, Loje community  is amongst the community with majority of Gogo ethnic group mixed up with few  other ethnic groups found in Tanzania. The flexibility that CER provides will help individual in the community to develop self-esteem about the essence of protecting and managing natural resources. A direct encounter between one person and another will provide support to keep in check the community members engaged in the CER program throughout implementation. CER provides a solution with minimal expenditure for local community members (youth, young adults and elders) to attain knowledge and skills on environmental conservation in order to serve and contribute to their communities. Also, the program intends to support the local community members with a supply of tree species seedlings of different kinds that will be planted from the level of households to Ward’s level. Participatory management of natural resources with local community members in Loje ward provides practical involvement for women and men to propel themselves into the workforce and contribute to their local communities.

Our problem, solution and our targeted populace are aligned with the goal and objectives of the fellowship. Our solution covers the aspects of environmental restoration, management, protection as well as environmental education and communication, from which we are dedicated to ensure the sustainability of the local community members generation to generation. The targeted populace are males and females especially young adults who are termed to be the important pillars in any of the development projects. CER is the possibility available to ensure the overall quality of the environment in cases where environmental assets are damaged due to anthropogenic activities.

A pilot will test a theoretical model on a small- scale level of  Loje Ward with a population of more than 10,705. The stage enable to discover potential problems that otherwise would not be detected until full-scale deployment. If these potential problems are not detected on time, it can cost a lot of money and time to introduce changes once the solution has been deployed to more communities. The stage also is chosen since in Tanzania communities there is no such kind of natural resources compensation, people and company tend to ignore restoration after exploitation of the resources.

Innovation of CER is derived from the fact that it is flexible depending on socio-economic characteristics and ecology, the community are supported in different environmental sustainability approaches through establishment and training of forest management committee with a corresponding mentor who will make sure that they remain in line with their daily routines of conserving the environment accordingly. A mentorship from someone in an environmental field, will contribute as the backup strategy towards sustainability that’s used to support and align the community towards the achievements of sustainable goals. Also, CER will be of unique innovation for establishing a tree nursery  garden with different kinds of tree species. The tree seedlings will be given to local community members under the supervision and management of the established local forest management committee to ensure sustainability of the solution. CER will also support farmers on their farming activities by establishing a training program that will help them to undertaken climate change adaptation strategy via planting trees in their farms in order to reduce  soil erosion and water current during heavy rainfall. CER will employ the software especially Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) in monitoring and evaluating the solution improvements where the mentors and local forest management committee will participate together to ensure all approaches and strategies are aligned.

CER serve more than 10,705 community members on the first year of our pilot project implementation. CER plans to engage more community members from different Wards so as to increase the number of sustainable communities through different project program. When the program technique is completely adopted, then in the next five years  CER program expect to serve more than 330,543 community members found in Chamwino District Council.

CER plan to use some of indicators that will direct the progression of the program basing on sustainable development goals. Indicators are;

• Access to energy.
• Population growth rate.
• Vulnerability to natural hazards.
• Carbon dioxide emissions.
• Ecosystem.
• Land use and status.

5 contract workers

5 volunteers 

Our team is well placed to deliver this CER program because we are establishing a successfully track record of creating, developing, monitoring and evaluating the program implementation to ensure its sustainability. With our team, we will use Arcgis software for monitoring and evaluating different vegetation cover in order to detect change evolved. The team is also well prepared in terms of knowledge which are to be delivered to the community for the purpose of raising awareness, implementing activities which require a certain expertise where the team plan to use one of our own and even hiring other experts for more efficiency and effectiveness as well as other team members can provide administrative support.

Through customization of vision and strategy; and rationalizing them will help to fit the team’s unique culture as well as ensuring that the message that diversity matters comes from the top. The team realize that the acceptance of gender, cultural, religious, and economic differences is essential to our core mission of sustaining local communities. Focus on impact and metrics where baseline are set such as audit diversity at our team to assess the previous and current practices. In identification of a set of metrics based on our customized vision and strategy, will ensure that our metrics are measuring both inputs and outputs. Also, the team will review our key performance indicators annually at board of directors level and at least quarterly at executive level. Our team will dedicate its focus on recruiting and selecting practices. Provide training for unbiased, interviewing and selection processes, and establish strategic partnerships that connect our team with diverse talent pipelines. We intend to invest in leadership development to retain high performers. Employ a range of formal and informal professional development tools, such as mentoring, coaching, and education opportunities. Regularly evaluate internal talent to ensure that employees of color are in the leadership development pipeline. Furthermore, the team will regularly engage in open, honest, and multidirectional dialogue at different levels, and work on developing a shared understanding that achieving diversity takes commitment and hard work from every member of the team.

Because we want to help the community to protect and conserve environmental resources specifically tree species that's why we believe Solve will provide the resources that our organization needs to  develop our technology aspect of CER program accurately.  When selected, we plan to use the $5,000 for staffing to hire the highly qualified environmental and community development officers.  Over the span of three months, we hope to use about $5,000 for personnel, supplies and any other expenses. 

An ideal partner in this solution will be able to provide technological support for our program in coding, software development, and handing front and back-end programing to help us create the optimum and functioning management system.  Although our team has the basic skills in this environmental area of management by using GIS and GPS, we could benefit from having another resource to seek advice in efficiency to complete this task. 

We are planning to work in collaboration with other non-profit organization such as Lead Foundation, government institutions like Chamwino District Council and Institute of Rural Development Planning; and civil societies whose vision and mission align with ours basing on different forest management issues such as climate change projects, and biodiversity conservation. Our team is willing to extend our reach to groups that might have this specialized skill.  Having a partner that could contribute to our solution will allow for more community to be attracted to our solution in the long-run achievement of sustainable goals. 

CER program can help the society to compensate resources lost such as tree species and conserve the community forest reserves which are carbon dioxide sinks for the purpose of carbon absorption and decarbonization thus, reduce the cost of un-repaired environmental damage. Compensation requirements cost society money, including transaction costs, scaling costs, investment costs, and long-term management costs from which the rural community we are serving are not able to cover due to poverty. An understanding of these financial costs motivate us to seek more funds that will help to inform the development of a cost-effective compensation framework, which is a framework that helps to reach the No Net Loss goal at the lowest cost to society. Also, we are qualified since our organization is teamed up with environmental experts who passionate and motivated to serve vulnerable communities who are struggling due to climate change impacts.