Global Compact International Yearbook Ausgabe 2011

Best Practice
Environment
Air France
Combating Deforestation
in Madagascar
hectares of moist forest and 85,000 hectares
of dry forest. This is an opportunity
for front-line teams to raise awareness
among farmers living close to the forests
classed as “new protected areas” about
the importance of preserving them.
Air France is providing €5 million in financial backing for
a large project to combat deforestation in Madagascar in
partnership with the GoodPlanet Foundation in France and
WWF.
Why help Madagascar to protect its forests,
one may ask. The answer is that
deforestation is responsible for 15 percent
of greenhouse gas emissions – the
equivalent of those generated by all
transport modes combined. Not only that,
but while Madagascar is outstanding for
its biodiversity, half of its forest cover has
disappeared over the past 50 years due
to slash-and-burn agricultural practice,
the creation of pastureland for livestock,
and charcoal production. The program
is being directed by photographer Yann
Arthus-Bertrand’s GoodPlanet Foundation
and run locally by WWF, which has
a very strong presence in Madagascar.
Working with the country’s authorities,
the Holistic Conservation Program for
Forests (HCPF) aims to help communities
living in over 500,000 hectares of forest
land to manage their forests efficiently
and sustainably for the benefit of the
people concerned. The project has so
far enabled the WWF team to hire 68
people locally.
Contributing to local community
development
The project aims to involve local people
in all the activities by empowering them
and training them to become self-sufficient
as well as enabling them to steer
their future development themselves.
Creating new protected areas
The program involves creating new
protected areas covering over 265,000
Helping local communities to manage their
forests sustainably
The program is organizing transfers of
natural resource management skills
based on empowerment, while building
up communities’ abilities across a
spectrum of technical, agricultural, and
financial management areas to help
them become self-sufficient when it
comes to managing their forests sustainably.
Literally thousands of families living
in an area of more than 140,000 hectares
are affected. The project deploys alternative
and sustainable farming practices
such as systems of rice intensifications,
small-scale breeding, fish farming, and
agro-forestry techniques. In this way, local
communities will ultimately benefit
from additional income and improved
living conditions.
Restoring 20,000 hectares of degraded forest
land
This will be achieved by setting up community
tree nurseries using native species.
Protecting plots of forest land will
also help them to regenerate naturally.
Replanting 5,000 hectares
Trees to be used for fuel wood will also
be planted in extremely degraded areas
close to urban settlements. Two years
into the project, local people are beginning
to make the connection between
deforestation and forest degradation,
and between climate change and the
phenomena they experience day-to-day
such as a changing crop calendar, flooding,
and so on. Some 500 farmers have
already been trained to diversify their
crops, and half of these have adopted
intensive rice-growing. Over 300,000
seedlings from 50 native species have
already been planted to restore degraded
forests, while 34 tree nurseries have
also been set up to provide the seedlings
needed to replant 900 hectares
with fast-growing tree species for use as
fuel wood. Twenty one natural resource
transfer-contracts have been signed with
local communities.
Ensuring the potential sequestration
of 60 - 70 million tons of carbon
According to IPCC estimates, the carbon
sequestration potential of the forests affected
by the program stands at around
60 - 70 million tons. The project accordingly
seeks to maintain this storage capacity
and preserve biodiversity, as well
as soil and water resources.
Assessing carbon stocks in preserved
forests
The project involves a large-scale scientific
component, which consists in
evaluating as accurately as possible the
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
generated through reducing deforestation.
GoodPlanet is overseeing this research
component in conjunction with
WWF and in partnership with a clutch
of European, American, and Malagasy
research bodies: Spot Image, Carnegie
Institution-University of Stanford, IOGA
(Institut et Observatoire de Géophysique
d’Antananarivo), IRD (Institut de Recherche
pour le Développement), CIRAD
(Centre de coopération internationale
en recherche agronomique pour le
Développement), LRI (Laboratoire des
Radio-Isotopes) et ESSA Forêts (Ecole
Supérieure des Sciences Agronomiques),
CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique).
Protecting Madagascar’s unique
biodiversity
Madagascar is one of 35 regions worldwide
on WWF’s list of biodiversity protection
priorities. Although modest in size
compared with those in Brazil or Indonesia,
Madagascar’s forests are home to an
equally large and diverse range of animal
and plant species: 250,000 species, of
which 70 percent are found nowhere else.
Deforestation is one of the most serious
threats facing this outstanding biodiversity.
Deforestation, which is mainly due
to slash-and-burn farming, the creation
of pastureland for livestock, and charcoal
production, is a major problem for the
island’s ecology and biodiversity. It has
a dramatic impact on the incomes of
farmers and fishermen.
Although the global airline industry accounts
for no more than approximately
two percent of man-made greenhouse
gas emissions, it is still responsible for
the emissions it generates. The world’s
airlines, grouped together in the International
Air Transport Association (IATA),
have undertaken to play their part in
combating climate change. Air France-
KLM has put considerable effort into
rallying the industry, as it has worked
hard for a number of years to control its
environmental impact via its “Climate
Action Plan.”
100 Global Compact International Yearbook 2011 Global Compact International Yearbook 2011
101