Landesa
Climate Transformation Fund • Bay of Bengal
Halting deforestation through securing small-holder land rights
Mangroves are important carbon sinks and among the most degraded ecosystems with high restoration potential. Landesa, a global development organisation, strives to secure land rights for marginalised populations, recognising their significance for poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, and peace. CTF funds Landesa’s project that aims to protect and restore mangrove forests and engages in policy dialogues on promoting legal rights of small-holder forest owners in the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. This project focuses on securing forest tenure, sustainable land management, reforestation, and conservation. Landesa uses a regional and collaborative approach within six countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India (West Bengal), Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to advance sustainable mangrove management, blending on-the-ground restoration and conservation efforts with advocacy for secure tenure rights.
Nature protection and restoration
Protecting and restoring nature is of paramount importance for addressing climate change. Deforestation and forest degradation result in substantial carbon emissions as forests are destroyed. Preserving the carbon stored in existing ecosystems and restoring carbon to areas that have lost it are critical steps in mitigating climate change. These actions not only help reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also have significant co-benefits for both human societies and biodiversity.
Tenure security
Tenure security in this context refers to the legal and customary rights of these communities to own, access, and control their forest lands. Secure tenure is crucial for CFM's success, as it empowers communities, ensures long-term stewardship of the forests, and provides them with incentives to manage resources sustainably.
Nature protection and restoration
Namibia
PyroCCS pioneers sustainable industrial biochar carbon removal in the Global South, deploying its own low-cost, robust, pyrolysis systems powered by renewable energy and backed by a digital measurement and reporting solution. These plants efficiently convert invasive acacia bushes in Namibia, a significant threat to the savanna ecosystem, into high-quality biochar, while providing critical employment in regions with high youth unemployment rates. PyroCCS's scalable technology, which they are also offering as a solution to other project developers, not only captures carbon but also supports local agricultural and environmental recovery as well as food security.
Nature protection and restoration
South Africa
CHAI will work on the high impact project of transitioning a portfolio of hospitals in South Africa's Western Cape Province to renewable energy. This could be a high impact measure that is currently not occurring due to the limited capacity of the department of health and because of bureaucratic hurdles to innovative financial and energy contracts. The project has the potential to reduce emissions by hundreds of thousands of tons, and leverages CHAI's extensive experience in health sector procurement and innovative finance.
Nature protection and restoration
Tanzania
This project develops a mobile app for regreening techniques like Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). The app delivers real-time, location-specific advice directly to farmers' phones. This approach reduces intervention costs by eliminating the need for in-person visits to every location. We already support Justdiggit’s regular work since 2021, and now added this project because it builds on proven FMNR methods, increasing cost-efficiency and potential for rapid scaling in dry landscapes.