Fundación Avina partners with Idesam’s Carbon Neutral Program
Idesam’s Carbon Neutral Program will offset Fundación Avina’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019.
Fundación Avina has established a partnership with Idesam’s Carbon Neutral Program in Brazil to neutralize carbon emissions generated by its operations, such as electric power consumption, air travel, accommodations, and employees’ commutes to and from work. In 2019, Fundación Avina’s emissions in Latin America totaled 431.54 tons of CO2 equivalent. This corresponds to over 1,000 trees that will be planted by Idesam in the Sustainable Development Reserve of Uatumã, in the Amazon region.
“In September 2019, Fundación Avina published its Climate Emergency Declaration, in which we made a commitment to reduce our emissions and promote urgent actions at all levels of society, in an effort to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming. This commitment involves acting proactively to offset our own emissions in 2020, something that we were able to make progress on in 2019 with the implementation of a carbon neutralization strategy that will encompass all of our organization’s projects by 2025. In addition, we are working with all of our programs to bring about robust impacts on climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. We have invited other institutions and companies to join us and increase the level of their climate actions,” says Juliana Strobel, Fundación Avina’s program manager in Brazil.
Idesam will work to offset the organization’s CO2 emissions by planting trees in Agroforestry Systems (or SAFs, for its Portuguese acronym), including both native Amazonian trees (which will remove CO2 from the atmosphere) and agricultural and fruit species.
This model will generate several co–benefits for local families. In addition to compensating for CO2 emissions, agroforestry systems can improve food security and generate income for local families, thus becoming a “productive forest.” In this way, Idesam seeks to address two fundamental issues: global climate regulation and support for the social and economic development of the people living in the Sustainable Development Reserve of Uatumã.
In addition, Idesam’s Carbon Neutral Program promotes an entire sustainable production chain in this Conservation Unit. To facilitate tree planting in the SAFs, 4 seedling nurseries were created in the reserve and agroforestry agents were hired and trained to support the implementation and monitoring of the systems. This creates local alternatives for income and employment based on sustainable activities, such as planting trees and recuperating degraded areas in the reserve. It is, in fact, a “premium carbon.”
Currently, the Sustainable Development Reserve of Uatumã includes 35 agro-extractive families that have partnered with the Carbon Neutral Program and play an important role as guardians of the forest. Offsetting Fundación Avina’s emissions will directly benefit at least 4 of these families, with the implementation of 1 hectare of Agroforestry Systems (SAFs) in the reserve.
“Idesam carries out the entire process of planning activities on the ground and identifying areas–including contacting and making agreements with the local seedling nurseries, purchasing supplies, planting, and monitoring seedlings—in partnership with the local communities in Uatumã’s Sustainable Development Reserve. Establishing new partnerships such as this one with Fundación Avina gives us more strength to continue this work which, while challenging, results in positive outcomes for the environment and for the families involved, by generating income and strengthening food security for these populations,” says Idesam Climate Change and Environmental Services researcher Victoria Bastos.
About Fundación Avina
Fundación Avina is a Latin American organization focused on producing the large-scale changes necessary for sustainable development by building and strengthening collaborative processes among stakeholders from different sectors. Avina works every day from the global South, in line with the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations, to push forward innovations that promote the care of the planet and the well-being of all people.
Fundación Avina believes it is necessary to expand and strengthen efforts that promote human dignity, equality, environmental sustainability and democratic institutions. To this end, Avina coordinates programs that address issues such as Climate Action, Biomes, Access to Water, Inclusive Recycling, and Sustainable Finance, among others.
About Idesam’s Carbon Neutral Program
Idesam’s Carbon Neutral Program was created in 2010 to connect large urban centers with forests, allowing people, companies, and initiatives to take responsibility for the impacts they generate on the planet by neutralizing their greenhouse gas emissions.
Neutralization takes place by planting native trees in SAFs, which is a method that prioritizes species that have economic value for communities in Uatumã’s Sustainable Development Reserve, in the Amazon region. The program is expected to expand to the Apuí region in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.
