Established in 2017 at the request of local communities, the Ntakata Mountains Project is founded on the creation of Village Land Forest Reserves (VLFRs) to help farming communities protect forest habitat in western Tanzania and the critical ecosystem services they provide. The project protects 216,000 hectares of Miombo woodland, saving 1.25 million trees annually and generating US$9,340,906 of carbon revenue for the local farming communities to date.
In the richly forested Ntakata Mountains, western Tanzania, the Bende, Tongwe and the Ha people have farmed in the forested valleys for generations. They depend on a healthy forest for the ecosystem services they provide to their farming lifestyle.
Over recent years new people have arrived into the area from both within Tanzania and from across the country’s western border, increasing pressure on the landscape. This pressure comes from transient agro-pastoralists, who bring with them different land management practices directly at odds with those of existing communities in the region. Communities have witnessed a rise in shifting agriculture that converts forest to farmland.
In response to the increasing pressures placed upon the community’s forest, the Ntakata Mountains project was established in 2017. The project works with community members to protect their forests, the valuable carbon it contains and the ecosystem services needed for farming.
By protecting legally designated village forests and their stored carbon, the project generates carbon credits that are sold to corporates decarbonising their business activities. Proceeds from these sales are shared with the local community, giving the forests a greater value standing then when cut down, addressing the underlying drivers of deforestation by reducing the economic necessity to fell trees.
Deforestation in Tanzania accounts for around 70% of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. Since the project’s inception, the forest communities have protected 1.25 million trees from being felled annually resulting in 2,366,070 carbon credits having been verified and issued between 2017 and 2022.
Not only does the avoidance of emissions have a global environmental impact, but is also supports the livelihoods of the local farming communities.
The community allocates a portion of the carbon revenues earned to a community conservation banking initiative called a Cocoba that supports local people with loans to promote conservation-aligned businesses. 32 Cocobas have collectively recruited more than 500 people and enabled the establishment of 189 women-owned businesses in 2023.
In addition to business loans, carbon finance is providing additional employment opportunities to local people. Carbon revenue is used to employ and train 103 Village Game Scouts (VGSs) to patrol the forest area. Such monitoring is highly effective; in 2022, 197 patrols were completed on foot, during which scouts removed hazardous snares.
Carbon Champions are also employed with carbon revenue who educate community members across the project area on forest conservation, climate change the project operations and benefits.
Local communities are allocating finance to social infrastructure projects for health and education. Every year a portion of revenue is directed to improving access to education. This includes building and renovating classrooms, teachers houses and toilet blocks.
Additionally revenue is allocated to improving community healthcare services. One portion of this finance provides health insurance for local people while another has been used to build village dispensaries.
In recognition of our integrated approach to conservation, the Ntakata Mountains project won a Pathfinder Award from the IUCN and the UNDP in 2021. Ntakata Mountains is accredited by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and has triple gold certification from the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Standard.
Given the complexity of these landscapes, verification is by no means straightforward. To ensure our projects are designed with the highest standards of quality and integrity, we work with world-leading forest carbon scientists at TerraCarbon to set our methodologies and project baselines. As such, we are confident that Ntakata Mountains project is accurately and appropriately verified in accordance with the very latest climate science. However, at the same time, we recognise (and support) the ongoing developments of these standards and understand that these processes will likely be improved upon in the coming years.
Before the Ntakata Mountains project began, the deforestation rate across the area was three times the national average. However, since engaging with the local community and providing the resources needed to protect forests, the project has annually kept 1.25 million trees standing that would otherwise have been cleared. In this way, the Ntakata Mountains Project is helping to reduce Tanzania’s overall deforestation rate while addressing the underlying drivers of deforestation in the region.
The Ntakata Mountains project issues credits conservatively, allocating the maximum percentage of generated credits to a non-permanence buffer pool. This is to safeguard against any potential, future loss of forests from the project area.
In a broader sense, the integration of a 30-year forest management scheme into the local community and district planning systems, structures and socio-economic fabric builds a more general permanence to the protection of natural resources for community benefits.
Climate Neutral Now – Nature-based solution Summary of Carbon Tanzania’s Nature-based solutions Preventing deforestation can mitigate 31% of global emissions, while safeguarding important biodiversity. REDD projects can link sustainable management of biodiverse forests to economic and livelihood improvements. Tanzania currently looses approx 1-2% of forests every year, contributing to approximately 70%
How do you overcome the challenges of communicating REDD project goals and outcomes to a community spread over vast forests? Introducing Carbon Champions.
Climate Neutral Now – Nature-based solution Summary of Carbon Tanzania’s Nature-based solutions Preventing deforestation can mitigate 31% of global emissions, while safeguarding important biodiversity. REDD projects can link sustainable management of biodiverse forests to economic and livelihood improvements. Tanzania currently looses approx 1-2% of forests every year, contributing to approximately 70%
How do you overcome the challenges of communicating REDD project goals and outcomes to a community spread over vast forests? Introducing Carbon Champions.
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Image credits: Carbon Tanzania/Roshni Lodhia/Paul Joyson-Hicks.
Director of Operations
David is a dedicated conservationist with both an excellent academic record and extensive field experience in designing and implementing practical conservation and agricultural project work. At Carbon Tanzania, he oversees the highly technical aspects of project operations, while also using his interpersonal and language skills to communicate the many and complex details of our projects to our partner communities and field collaborators.
Director of Finance
Alpha is a Certified Public Accountant with a degree in accountancy and finance. Alpha is responsible for overseeing all the finance and accounting systems both within the company and across our projects. Alpha’s work with the communities also ensures that they are able to plan the financial management and implement best practices in the allocation of the revenues from their successful natural resource protection activities.
Co-founder
Marc oversees project operations, often in the field as well as from the Arusha base, and leads the search to find and develop new areas where our approach can deliver lasting results. As a co-founder of Carbon Tanzania, maintaining a connection with the landscapes in which Carbon Tanzania works is critical to Marc.
Co-founder
After an established career as one of East Africa’s leading professional outdoor, trekking and wildlife guides, Jo co-founded Carbon Tanzania. Jo’s focus is to ensure business sustainability through financial management and sales, and to ensure that the company has the financial capacity to scale when opportunities arise.
