Agroforestry for Local Climate Change Adaptation - A message from our partners at EcoHimal

EcoHimal recognises the importance of developing locally appropriate mountain agroforestry systems in order to lessen the effects of global warming and glacial melt in the Himalayas. Forests, with their greenery and large biomass, can help to store carbon, improve water availability, and reduce landslides and soil erosion, as well as other adverse effects of climate change. Not only will properly managed agroforestry reduce the risk of effect of climate change, it can also become a best-practice adaptation by and for farmers.

For people in remote communities, making a living is precarious, based largely on subsistence agriculture. Transport, health, education and market infrastructures are limited, and many families are dependent on remittances from other family members who have emigrated.

Mountain regions are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with risks like glacial lake outburst floods, erratic rainfall, landslides, flash floods and drought. Specific challenges in Nepal include:

(a) the low status and very difficult situation of women: there is an acute shortage of education, training, entrepreneurship, and employment opportunities;

(b) low agricultural productivity, poor food security, hunger, poor nutrition;

(c) subsistence farming is extremely vulnerable to the accelerating impacts of climate change;

(d) due to out-migration there is a lack of farm workers;

(e) land is under-utilised, small-holdings are often less than 0.5 hectares, soil quality is deteriorating;

(f) knowledge, resources, and training on climate-change adaptation are severely lacking.

Communities in the Himalayan foothills are under continuous threat of water shortages, insect pests, temperature variations, irregular precipitation, long droughts, crop failure, hailstorms, landslides and flooding, and soil erosion, as well as thunderstorms, lightning-kindled wildfires, cloudbursts, slope failure and landslides, and mass wasting, and landslides, all of these causing ecological damage and economic losses.

The population of Nepal accounts for less than 0.4% of the total world population and is responsible for only ca. 0.025% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the world. However, Nepal is among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as temperatures in High Mountain areas are set to rise sharply. Against this background, the community-led agroforestry model implemented by EcoHimal has been sensitively conceived and designed, independent of any pre-set literature or model.

Three basic types of agroforestry systems – agri-silviculture (crops + trees), silvo-pastoral (pasture/livestock + trees); and agro-silvo-pastoral (crops + pasture + trees) were discussed among local leaders and communities, and line agencies. Bearing in mind the specific needs of small-holder farmers, the lack of pasture land, the importance of utilizing marginal farm land, the dependency on trees and forests for livelihood, and local practices established over the centuries, we visualized an innovative module suited to this socio-environmental complexity. Thus, the Agroforestry Resource Centre (AFRC) model came about, accommodating and acknowledging local needs, available resources (land, water, human resources, market, etc.) and the geographical situation of rural mountain communities.

With the AFRC model of land-use management, trees and shrubs are integrated into crop and animal farming, to create environmental, economic, and social benefits. This model is community-led, with the focus on layer cropping, in turn offering a less labour/water-intensive approach. The concept has adopted locally and replicated in the country and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic has had massive impacts, but service delivery has continued for the farmers – an impressive achievement. It was an example of local empowerment and ownership.

EcoHimal wishes to express its sincere appreciation to our funding partner the Glacier Trust and its founder, the late Robin Garton, for embracing the concept right from the beginning. Similarly, we extend our thanks to the Marr-Munning Trust, the Swiss Foundation, Help Alliance and the Margaret Hayman Charitable Trust for their valuable support. We are proud to be able to join hands with such generous partners, working for the sake of local communities to resolve the global problems of climate change.

Narayan Dhakal, EcoHimal Nepal

Warming Up...

‘GREAT ADAPTATIONS’ IS WARMING UP

By Ruby Glasspool (UK Executive Director)

We recently received feedback on Morgan Phillips’ book, Great Adaptations: In the shadow of a climate crisis, from Antionette Frearson in the Education for Sustainable Futures Special Interest Group at the University of Worcester. Of course we were delighted, but in her review she makes an interesting point. Antionette readily admits her distaste at the creation of air-conditioned pavements in Doha, and yet shares with us that she developed her understanding of why this was being done from reading the book, and could more clearly see the motivations behind it.

It is of course very easy to judge any sort of lavish attempt at cooling ourselves and the planet down, but we do need to be better informed at why we are responding in these rather thoughtless ways. If we are better informed, it paves the way for a more just, fairer adaptation for us all. And Morgan Phillips’ book does just that - informs without judging. This incredible book is only just warming up! Here is Antionette’s full and wonderful review:

Once I started reading this book, I couldn’t stop and picked it up at every available opportunity. It was so engaging and fascinating, I chatted away to my hubby and 10 year old daughter about some of the different themes. 

The book really brought home how important it is that climate change should no longer be the ‘elephant in the room’ with global governments and policymakers and that we should all be talking about how we’re going to adapt to our changing climate - a lot more than what we are doing.  

The author highlighted that adaptations need to be beneficial and valuable to all, as there is a risk of maladaptations that either do not suit the community they’re intended for that would benefit only a few and potentially harm others. An example of a maladaptive approach was the use of air-conditioned pavements in Doha, Qatar for the purposes of hosting the recent World Cup - powered by fossil fuels which is found in abundance there. Yet, just before I shook my head in dismay, it was explained that in an effort to mitigate their increasingly sweltering climate, Saudi Arabian residents had made these oil-fuelled adaptations in an attempt to continue living and socialising outdoors, as opposed to the prospect of living an isolated life indoors at the mercy of indoor air-conditioning. I could now see the reasoning behind the seemingly extravagant act of cooling pavements, just not with a carbon-rich fuel which is exacerbating the problem! 

Nonetheless, it was so inspiring to read about truly great adaptations that are already benefitting so many, such as the agroforestry project in Nepal, the ‘Make Rojava Green Again’ venture, as well as the pioneering work of Glasgow and Warwickshire Council in adjusting to climate change. The author states that the success of any adaptation depends on how it addresses the needs of a particular community and if the residents can see the benefit, they will work collaboratively for its continued success. I started to reflect on how we can possibly use these successful adaptation models to steer our own climate change work in education. 

The author also brought home the need for climate justice; governmental policies and decisions favouring the wealthy and able whilst leaving the less fortunate and those with disabilities to struggle (and perhaps perish) in the face of increasing severe storms, droughts, floods and heatwaves. He gave some distressing examples of inequalities that have been observed in both the US and Paris. The latter is making some headway into supporting residents cope in future heatwaves after suffering an unprecedented loss of life in a 2019 heatwave,  but there is still much to be done. 

All in all, the book felt like a call to arms to encourage everyone, everywhere to acknowledge the changes that are happening now in today’s climate so that we can adapt ourselves and our environments for a hotter world. Supporting the educators to educate the children seems a good place to start. I, for one, feel motivated and empowered to join the cause!

By Antionette Frearson, University of Worcester

Women's Cooperative

EMPOWERING WOMEN’S COOPERATIVE IN CHARGHARE

By Ruby Glasspool (UK Executive Director)

I recently visited the village of Charghare in Nuwakot, Nepal and as I arrived, I walked straight into a meeting of the women’s cooperative group. Curious, I started asking questions to really understand how the cooperative helped these women who live in incredibly remote areas. The project is supported by our partner HICODEF who also run agricultural training programmes in the area.

Women of Charghare conducting their morning weekly meeting

Each member contributes a small amount [200 rupees] into the overall pot each month, creating a larger sum of funds that individuals can then request to borrow for livelihoods projects. These funds provide much needed up-front capital for community projects that ultimately benefit the whole community. Buying a goat for example, provides milk for others. Investing in agriculture provides food and income for the wider village.

The latest resident in Charghare village

Each woman can receive up to 30,000 Rupees a year in loans at favourable interest rates. The interest rates paid boost the overall pot, but the borrower can easily afford them after benefitting financially from whatever project they have invested in. I was impressed by the villagers’ skill in essentially running their own remote banking facility with nothing but a ledger and a large tin box!

The groups’ Chairperson and bookkeeper checking through the entries for that week

The sub-group at Charghare is also part of a much larger cooperative down in the nearby city. Pots of funds are taken down to this larger group and banked, and as this money is then invested and gains interest and returns, larger amounts can be borrowed again by the villagers.

It really is an impressive way to manage small pots of money to enable them to do more and go further, without burdening poorer community members with excessive debts. Of course, the entire operation is based on what our larger worldwide banks do with our money, but with one big difference - self-empowerment! This is a really effective way to foster community ownership and build a sense of empowerment in otherwise fairly powerless rural communities.

The members of the Charghare women’s cooperative group

Hopeful Farmers

HOPEFUL FARMERS IN KAVREPALANCHOK

By Ruby Glasspool (UK Executive Director)

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting several farming communities in the Kavre region of Nepal, where TGT partner EcoHimal have been working to support farmers in organic farming and making use of marginal land.

I visited the Agro-Forestry Resource Centre [AFRC] and met the incredible team of people there who support these communities. Their skills in, and passion for agriculture, animal care and environmental science were truly impressive. In total there are 6 staff who work and live directly in this AFRC, and day and night they work tirelessly to train and support local farmers, nurture crops and continuously look for ways to combat the many effects of climate change on farmers lives.

Staff and local farmers at the AFRC in Kavrepalanchok

I learned that soil nutrients are rapidly declining in the area, and to combat this farmers inter-crop different varieties of crops with roots that keep soil nutrients healthy. I also learned that steep, sloped land is regularly collapsing and destroying crops and reducing available land because of intense monsoons. The farmers plant broom grass which not only stabilises the slopes against landslides, but also fetches a fair price in markets when sold as cleaning brooms for household use.

A meeting with 4 local farmers in Halede, Kavrepalanchok to discuss current challenges and successes

I have been truly inspired by the level of hope the farmers have for their futures as organic commercial farmers. It is still early days in terms of implementing the project, and training is being carried out along with the planting of various trial crops using specialist agricultural techniques. Farmers are beginning to sell some crops, but have yet to see the full fruition of their labour. One farmer told me that he has seen the success of some of his neighbours and he is extremely hopeful about becoming a successful commercial farmer himself. The patience and commitment and passion for organic farming I have seen in these farmers has been incredibly humbling.

Farmer Brem with his seedlings and thriving crops in the village of Bhatpol, is well on his way to yielding his first commercial crop

Yes, we are supporting poor rural communities to build a sustainable income, and improving the nutrition in the community, but more importantly we are employing techniques that enable mindful, effective climate adaptation. Planting broom grass stabilises slopes, intercropping introduces much needed soil nutrients back into the land, planting coffee trees captures Co2, using bio-pesticides [animal manure] eliminates harmful chemical use and strategic planting of trees and bushes that create shade allows the farmers to grow crops that would otherwise die in the heat of the sun.

An abundance of seedlings to distribute to the farmers at the AFRC

The Kavrepalanchok project is only in its first couple of years of implementation, but on visiting them it’s very clear the enormous level of potential this has for the lives of the communities and for our contribution to supporting mindful climate adaptation. Already some crops are producing commercial quantities of organic produce and is being sold at a fair price at local markets. Farmers get 24 Rupees for 1kg of tomatoes, which the middle-man then sells for 60 Rupees at the markets. Currently farmers themselves aren’t able to get 60 Rupees directly themselves, as without branding and marketing they are not taken seriously by the buyers at the market. The middle-men have this branding and level of commercial professionalism, and it was clear that this is the next step in supporting our farmers.

Proud farmers with an early yield of organic tomatoes ready for selling

My visit to Kavrepalanchok was inspiring, hugely promising and educating. I can now return to the UK and act as an effective middle-woman myself, to continue to raise support and funds for these incredible projects.

The Long Road

THE LONG ROAD TO COFFEE IN NEPAL

By Ruby Glasspool (UK Executive Director)

Roads! We take them for granted in the UK, but they take on a whole new meaning in Kathmandu. I arrived in Nepal 3 days ago on my very first trip to meet our project partners and communities, and first stop was Nepal Organic Coffee. Our project partner Eco Himal work in the remote Solukhumbu region with local farmers to train in coffee production. Before heading out into the fields where the coffee is grown, I wanted to see its final, end of the road destination. Accompanied by TGT volunteer Richard Allen, we were warmly greeted by founder Dhakeshwor Ghimere and his son Saroj Ghimere.

The road to the coffee producers is currently under construction, so we had to abandon the car and go on foot.

I was hugely impressed by the obvious passion and integrity with which they produced the final roasted coffee bean. We were taken on a tour of the entire process, from sorting the good from the bad bean, roasting to perfection and packaging up for distribution.

Every single bean is sorted for quality by hand.

TGT grown coffee, mostly in the Solukhumbu region, accounts for approximately 5% of their total stock, but even so - there was a huge stock pile on site. It is still very early days in terms of the history of TGT projects producing coffee, and there is clearly room for growth. Dhakeshwor was quick to point out that the supply from Solukhumbu was the best quality bean of their supply.

Dhakeshwor Ghimere with the coffee beans produced directly from the Solukhumbu region.

Next we were taken through the various packaging design and processing and informed that the best selling bean was the medium to dark roast as a whole-bean. Every pack is vacuum sealed and Nepal Organic Coffee clearly take great pride in their elegant packaging design.

One of the workers preparing the bags for filling.

There were hundreds of boxed up orders ready to be delivered all over Nepal. We were told that the current demand for coffee beans in Kathmandu alone is far greater than supply can provide. There is huge potential for the growth of this market here, and with Eco Himal’s project design centred around integrity, sustainability and climate awareness, this can only be a good thing!

It may be a long, and bumpy, road to get coffee beans from the remotest communities in Nepal to the cups of Kathmandu coffee lovers, but it’s a road worth travelling!

From left to right: Dhakeshwor Ghimere, Ruby Glasspool, Richard Allen and Saroj Ghimere.

From Africa to Nepal

From Africa to Nepal: My first week as Executive Director of TGT

By Ruby Glasspool (UK Executive Director)

I’ve never been to Nepal, but that is about to change. Last week I took my first tentative steps as the new executive director for The Glacier Trust. When I read up about the charity and its work, I knew I had a part to play in its future, and was over the moon to be selected as the next strategic leader. Since starting last week, it has become clear that I have a pair of solid, well-trodden trekking boots to follow in Morgan Phillips. I humbly leave behind my role as chief executive officer of Bread and Water for Africa and gratefully take the reins for TGT.

First handing over meeting at Wiper and True brewery in Bristol

During my first week or two, I immersed myself deeply into the heart and culture of Nepal through content and books - something I love to do! It is hugely important to me to work ‘with’ people, side by side, and honour and respect cultural differences. I am no dictator, I prefer to work harmoniously with every individual and group and make room for our nuanced differences. Through my humanitarian work, I value providing a ‘hand up’ not a ‘hand out’, and I passionately believe that if people are empowered, and respected for their uniqueness and talents, we can achieve far more than if we turn up with food trucks and hierarchy. It was strong evidence of all these values, and more, that drew me to TGT.

Personally, I have travelled the world and seen first hand the suffering caused by cultural, political and economic ‘differences’. It sounds cliché to say that ‘there is enough food and supplies for everyone on this planet’ - but it’s not just an ideal - it is an immediate reality that can be achieved if we radically change our inherent, habitual attitudes. Humanitarian aid, especially since the glorious years of Band Aid, has grown into a movement that perpetuates the idea that ‘some poor people need help from us’, and created dependency and status hierarchy like never before. It’s time to change that, and nurture smaller charities who are leading the way in undoing that dependency and empowering our fellow, equal, humans.

This is why I am so proud to have stepped into this role with TGT, a small charity who is most definitely leading the way in a new approach to aid. TGT are poised on the brink of a time where big change can happen globally, and it will be the TGT’s of the world that know exactly how to clean up the mess left behind by so many well intentioned do-gooders. My values in my work are self-empowerment, sustainability, fairness, equality and kindness; and TGT embody all of these principles.

I am still taking one small step at a time as I learn the ropes of this wonderful role, and I am looking forward to getting to know all our supporters, patrons, partners and advocates who have made all this possible. I hope I can do justice to the legacy that all of these people, including you dear reader, have made through the work of the Trust.

I am planning a long trip to our projects in Nepal this year, so that my work going forward is connected not just through my mind, but through my heart too. I look forward to sharing the findings of that trip with you all, and in the meantime - thank you for accepting me so graciously into the TGT family.

Referencing Degrowth

By referencing degrowth for the first time, the IPCC has made imagining the end of capitalism a tiny bit easier

By Morgan Phillips (UK Co-Director)

Every seven or eight years the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conducts a comprehensive review of all the latest physical and social science relating to climate change. The review is conducted by the IPCC’s three working groups. Each group has its own specific focus area and brings together hundreds of academics from across the globe, all of whom contribute their expertise voluntarily. The reviews are released in the form of three assessment reports, and a final synthesis report, all of which are subject to a signing off process that involves Government officials from every UN member state.

The fact that the reports are produced at all is a testament to our unique ability, as a species, to collaborate and cooperate on difficult topics across multiple contexts and cultures. In the context of these turbulent times, it is worth pausing to appreciate this. The very existence of these reports is a triumph, an achievement to be cherished.

Shortly before the UN’s COP26 extravaganza in Glasgow last year, the IPCC published the first report of what is now the sixth round of assessment reports. That publication, pulled together by working group 1, focused on the physical science of climate change. The findings were sobering to say the least. The UN Secretary General António Guterres described the report as "code red for humanity".

On February 28th this year, working group 2 published its contribution to the sixth assessment. Their report examines the impacts, adaptations and vulnerabilities related to climate change. Again, it is sobering stuff. According to the report, the impacts of climate change are intensifying and now being felt by all life forms, all over the world. The authors explain how climate change is exposing and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities, and in many places causing irreversible losses and damage to communities, properties, landforms and species. Working group 2 also make it piercingly clear that funding for effective adaptation strategies is severely lacking, and that the risk of maladaptation is rising fast – especially in the Global South.

What this latest report and the report of working group 1 are telling us is that crude models of ‘development’ based on the pursuit of endless economic growth (even of the green kind) are incompatible with climate stability. They do not, of course, state this explicitly, but it is very hard to avoid this conclusion when you take stock of the size of the problem, the timescales involved, and the slow pace of the technological progress that is supposed to be coming to the rescue.

Working group 2 do however, in chapter 18 of their report, strongly allude to the gains that could be made if alternative models of development were given more serious attention, or even adopted. The concept of ‘degrowth’ is cited for the first time ever in a report of this nature, and more than once. Also referenced are the concepts of ‘buen vivir’, ‘Ubuntu’, and ‘ecological Swaraj’ that are gaining traction in South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and India respectively. These ideas are reframing what is meant by development, while questioning the wisdom of goals like green growth and sustainable development. They offer glimmers of hope.

So, while it is hard to digest the climate science of the IPCC’s reports, and hard to remain hopeful that Western civilisation is secure, it is heartening to see that alternative forms of civilisation are at last being explored at UN level. Until now, as the oft-quoted saying goes, it has been “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”, but as ideas like degrowth and ecological Swaraj creep into mainstream thinking, it is becoming easier to imagine the forms successor civilisations might take as ‘Western’ civilisation starts to unravel. This makes the end of capitalism altogether less daunting, and the end of the world less likely.

This article will appear in the next edition of Eco Living magazine.