AYYALUR LIVELIHOODS PROJECT
At the confluence of Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats mountain ranges of India in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu State of southern India lies a semi-deciduous scrub jungle called Ayyalur. Ayyalur is home to the unique Valaiyar community (who will form the majority of the project beneficiaries) and Kadavur Slender Loris Sanctuary.
A LONG TRADITION OF FOREST GATHERERS UNDER PRESSURE
The Valaiyars are traditional hunter-gatherer communities (currently classified as Most Backward Class within the Tamil Nadu), who are renowned for their foraging skills in southern India. Due to their unparalleled traditional knowledge in gathering medicinal and aromatic herbs, their lives and livelihoods are strongly connected to the surrounding forests for collecting Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) like honey, fruits (tamarind, gooseberry, etc.), medicinal and aromatic herbs, flowers, roots, bark, that have a high demand in the alternative medicine and cosmetics markets.
Considering the increasing demand of these herbs and rising living expenses, the forests in this area have been severely degraded due to unsustainable harvest methods. Increased seasonal migration of able men (in search of alternate income sources), has led to additional drudgery on women. Additionally, increased poverty and drastic shift in dietary habits over the last decade have resulted in poor nutrition. The recent creation of Kadavur Slender Loris Sanctuary will impact the communities who will have reduced/controlled access to the forest areas, thereby forcing them to rely on other avenues to generate income.
Since the early 1990s, some members in the community started turning to agroforestry as a viable solution to their problems and have seen considerable success. Therefore, this project aims to capitalize on the innate knowledge of the Valaiyars: a comprehensive planting layout of multi-use trees, shrubs and tubers with allied income generating activities has been envisaged to provide income and nutritional diversity and security. The project will be implemented over 8,000 ha of arable waste lands and will sequester 1,411 ktCO2e over 20 years.
To achieve this goal, the Livelihoods Carbon Fund 3 (LCF3) aims to partner with Social, Education and Environmental, Development Scheme (SEEDS) Trust, a local non-governmental, not-for-profit organization, that has been working in this landscape for the past 25 years and is deeply trusted by the local communities. SEEDS Trust has been working on several dimensions towards social development and environmental conservation and is renowned for its honesty and integrity within State of Tamil Nadu. SEEDS Trust has also been instrumental in the declaration of the Kadavur Slender Loris Sanctuary after decades of outreach and activism to destigmatize and conserve the small mammal called Gray Slender Loris (Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) and receives highest protection under the Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act (1982) of India.
RECREATING A FOREST IN ONE’S OWN FARM
A reliable technological model has been standardised by SEEDS Trust over the last decade, keeping in mind the soil conditions and water availability in 2 planting systems in the landscape, that could now be expanded to reach more rural households of the highly motivated Valaiyar community at the landscape level. A staggering 16 species of trees, along with many other short-term & long-term intercrops of shrub, tuber, herb and vine species will ensure year-round flowering (to facilitate native apiculture and steady NTFP collection) and fruiting (to generate income and meet nutritional needs).
Therefore, the project components are as follows:
- Establishment of a large-scale agroforestry model which consists of multi-purpose native and naturalized tree species on 8,000 ha of privately-owned lands. The planting and maintenance of 4.56 million trees will generate 1,411 ktCO2e for the 3rd Livelihoods Carbon Fund (LCF3) over 20 years. The SEEDS Trust team’s robust nurseries ensure sapling rearing locally from seeds collected within the landscape from the oldest and hardiest trees. By planting the key NTFP species within the farmer’s plot, drudgery and forests dependence will be greatly reduced, while diversifying income and nutrition.
- Economic valorisation of natural resources. Training and handholding on sustainable harvest, simple value addition techniques, creating and managing Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) and effective marketing will be provided to the beneficiaries. Subsidized bee boxes and apiculture training will be provided as an incentive to high tree survival, expanding on the existing native apiculture program.
- A contribution to improved nutrition. The agroforestry layout includes several tree species that provide fruits (and greens), the intercropping of millets, vegetables, pulses, etc. towards enhancing nutritional security. Millets are the staple crops of the semi-arid tropics like the Ayyalur landscape, as other cereals cannot be easily cultivated in that terrain due to low rainfall and poor soil fertility. United Nations declared 2023 as International Year of Millets based on the proposal of India at the United Nations General Assembly. The Union Finance Ministry announced that ‘Support will be provided for post-harvest value addition, enhancing domestic consumption and branding of millet products nationally and internationally”. Therefore, the current climate is highly conducive for the Ayyalur Livelihoods Project plan of promotion of production and consumption of millets.
- d. Increased occupancy of the Gray Slender Loris. By increasing the tree cover in this landscape and the continued sensitization on sustainable practices and biodiversity conservation, the Project hopes to realize a potential increase the occupancy of the arboreal Slender Loris outside the protected area.
On the environmental side, by rehabilitating 8,000 hectares of arable waste-lands (using two different agroforestry systems) and assuring a widespread adoption of soil and water conservation practices, we will contribute to increase the soil health (using soil organic carbon as proxy) and water retention, as well as the carbon sequestration.
On the social perspective, the project will have a direct impact on the reduction of drudgery for women, reducing the time and effort to collect NTFP. In addition to this, promoting the production of wild food on the farmers plots, we will directly impact diversity of food groups intake in the household.
From the economic perspective, by increasing the capacities of farmers (mainly women) on sustainable harvesting and added value for NTFP and strengthening farmers organizations (on leadership, governance and marketing) while providing market linkages and processing facilities, the project will directly contribute to an increase of on-farm net revenue.
About the Livelihoods Carbon Funds
The Livelihoods Carbon Fund 3 (LCF3) is a successor impact investment vehicle which leverages carbon finance to invest in community-based projects for the restoration &/or conservation of natural and agricultural ecosystems. LCF3 will build on the Livelihoods Carbon Funds (LCFs) investment track-record spanning since 2011 of LCF1 (€45m, 2011) and LCF2 (€65m, 2017) with a portfolio of over 20 investments in agroforestry, sustainable agriculture, mangrove and improved cookstove distribution projects, designed and implemented over 10 to 20 years, in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The LCFs investment model is pioneering as it has been purposefully designed, since 2011, to bridge a financing gap in carbon projects, especially those funded by private capital. In fact, private capital markets seldom facilitate the development of carbon projects by local communities as they tend to pay for carbon certificates only upon delivery, with little or no upfront finance.
LCFs address the key barrier of access to upfront financing for community-based projects, by mobilizing upfront this capital at risk to meet the challenging objective of tackling climate change and restoring/conserving ecosystems (natural & agricultural) by empowering rural communities with climate solutions which can improve their livelihoods.
To achieve this objective, LCFs invest directly into a diversified portfolio of tailor-made carbon projects over a span of 10 to 20 years depending on the project type. These projects are designed with and implemented through equally long-term partnerships with local project developers, pursuant to a rigorous due-diligence process. As such, LCF investment vehicles are typically structured over 24 years to harbor these long-term investments.
As LCF projects enter into implementation, they generate two main streams of return: i) carbon certificates at the fund’s production cost, which are distributed back to investors who retire these certificates for offsetting under the voluntary carbon market and ii) positive social and environmental impacts (e.g.: income opportunities from projects’ fruit or timber trees, diversified diets, soil health, reduced drudgery, biodiversity, etc.) which benefit directly the local communities targeted by LCF projects, and whilst not monetized on behalf of investors, are measured and reported throughout the fund’s 24 years-term.
In summary, below is a diagram depicting the LCFs investment model:
