Bagepalli CDM Reforestation Project

Background

Our effort to project dry land horticulture as Afforestation/Re-forestation and register it as an A/R CDM Project took a little over 16 years. The technology is to plant fruit and fodder trees on the scattered rain fed holdings of Member Coolie families, and wean them away from the dangers of timely rain dependent field crops.

The region receives about 560 mm of rainfall, but this is erratic and spatial. This is okay for hardy trees, but not for Field Crops that need timely and predictable rainfall.

Activities Implemented Joinly (AIJ)

16 years back, we registered the first avatar of this project, the "Bagepalli Tamarind Project", as an Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) Project after it was certified by the DoE, US government. It was to plant tamarind trees on 1,000 hectares of Coolie land. The science to calculate sequestration was provided by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

This was perhaps one of the world's first scientifically proven sequestration models, a precursor of sorts to CDM. But unfortunately, nothing came of it by way of resource mobilisation and actual implementation.

"Own Efforts" Plantings

Nevertheless, we ploughed on. From 1996, Member Coolie families put aside small patches of their land to plant tamarind and mango saplings under what we call the "Own Efforts" project. Except for technical assistance to procure good saplings, ADATS did not have the money to help them with anything else.

In 11 years from 1996 to 2007, Member Coolie families planted a total of 74,254 saplings, but the survival rate was very poor at 26%.

Strategic Planning

We realised that saplings planted on dry lands just couldn't survive unless there was a systematic programme to support them with technical inputs, watering arrangements, et al. In April 2007 we conducted a very long and serious strategic planning workshop for ADATS Staff and Coolie Sangha functionaries, where we gleaned learning from all our ad hoc efforts up until then.

A/R Validation

In mid 2007 we revisited the PDD, prepared our CCBA documentation and appointed TÜV SÜD, München, to validate the project.

The PDD was hosted for Global Stakeholder Process at the UNFCCC website from 12 October to 25 November 2007. Please click here to visit the UNFCCC website. The Project was also put up at the CCBA website for public comments from 17 October to 7 November 2007. Please click here to visit the CCBA website. CCBA Validation was then put on temporary hold till we completed CDM validation and registration of the project as an A/R CDM with the UNFCCC.

Though a lot of ground was covered in the desk study and first validation visit, it was nowhere near completion. We hadn't established proper tenure records for each Coolie landholding in the strict manner that the rigour of CDM demanded.

Delineating Discrete Plots & establishing Land Tenure

GIS readings had to be taken of the multiple corners that each plot comprised. Latitude/Longitude readings had to be placed on GPS maps. The shapes of each discrete plot had to be rechecked in the field. Village maps had to be overlaid on Google Earth to ensure authenticity. The exact area had to be digitally calculated. Title Deeds (Pahanis and Kathe records, Saguvali Chitis, etc.) had to be obtained, cross-checked, scanned and fed into our A/R Preparation solution.

The delineation of distinct parcels of land where the A/R CDM would be implemented involved painstaking and time consuming efforts.

Trees Module & Polygon Recorder

Immediately after the first validation, our IT personnel began working on the in house development of a software to help in the process. 3 years down the line, this software was finally debugged and close to ready. Tristle Technologies developed a high value product from all this domain knowledge, which they market to other NGOs who develop land based emission reduction projects.

Process Map

We took GIS readings and fed it all into this software, but found huge errors. Plots were misshapen, they overlapped and even their orientation was warped! It took ages of field tests, trial and error to get it all right.

Missing out on even small and seemingly inconsequential steps led to disaster. Calibration settings of the handheld GIS reading devices had to be just right. Landowners had to plant stones on every corner of their plots and not just "guess" their boundaries. Machine numbers, Land ID's and Reading Numbers had to be precisely recorded. After 6 months of pure slog in village after village, over 60,000 readings had to be deleted, literally bringing tears to the eyes of Field Staff who had taken those readings. And every time the possibility of an error was detected, the software had to be recoded to digitally recognise it and prevent wrong recording.

Eventually, when we did get it right, a very detailed process map consisting 5 Activity Processes comprising 33 Tasks was finalised and we started all over again.

Every single ADATS Staff — Field Workers, Mahila Trainers, Case Workers, Extension Workers, et al, were put on the job. When it was found that more hands were needed, 5 more Staff were appointed, especially for this task. Dozens of village volunteers were recruited and paid Rs 10 for every plot that they successfully recorded. They went to each and every one of the 12,347 plots and walked on their boundaries for an average of 3.5 times!

Baseline Surveys

During these visits, a whole lot of vital information on each discrete plot was also collected. This included the government allotted Survey Number, Title holder, Soil type, Gradient, Contour Bund quality, Distance from a perennial Water Source, etc.

Alongside, the carbon stock on the plots was also recorded — i.e. the number of species of existing trees, their girth, height, location, etc. On average, each discrete plot of land has a little under 5 trees, and each acre has about 3 trees.

Revised Project Design Document (PDD)

As and when the data was finalised, our A/R Consultant finalised sections of the PDD for the second validation. In the meanwhile, a new methodology was released by the UNFCCC and the revised PDD had to undergo major changes.

The 2nd Version of our PDD was for 8,933 hectares of dry land belonging to 8,107 Coolie families. Planting will be staggered over 8 years from 2011 to 2018, following 3 Planting Models:

With this staggered planting and different planting models, an estimation of net anthropogenic GHG removals by sinks for a 20 year period from 2008 to 2027 is 1,842,065 tCO2-e

However, the estimated removal by sinks for 1 hectare of mango, for example, is 13.5 tCO2-e per hectare per annum or 270 CERs over 20 years.

Second Validation

The second Validation by TÜV SÜD took place from 5 to 13 July 2010 and the revised PDD was webhosted on 9 July 2010.

The final validation report was ready by January 2011 and submitted to the CDM Executive Board, UNFCCC, February 2011. It can be downloaded here.

We expect final registration of the project in the next months.

Cost per Hectare

The cost of establishing 521 saplings on 1 hectare of land is Rs 106,400 as shown under:

ITEM COST
Cost of pitting, red earth and sand for 260 pits per hectare @ Rs 20 5,200
Cost of 260 saplings of Mango/Tamarind/Cashew per hectares @ Rs 60 15,600
Cost of 260 pieces of Rockwool per hectare family plot @ Rs 60 15,600
Cost of pitting, red earth and sand for an additional 250 pits per hectare @ Rs 20 5,000
Cost of 250 other species to be planted in the 2nd year @ Rs 40 per sapling 10,000
Cost of replacing 52 saplings per hectare family plot in the 2nd year 3,120
Cost of replacing 52 saplings per hectare family plot in the 3rd year 3,120
Cost of 2 prefab PVC Field Tanks of 6,500 litre capacity on each hectare @ Rs 7,500 15,000
Planting agave on the boundaries of each hectare @ Rs 500 1,000
Watering costs @ Rs 6 per sapling per month x 7 summer months x 3 years 32,760
10% Overheads - Technical/Supervision Staff & Running Costs 10,364
Total for 3 years 106,400

36% of this amount, the wage components (Item Nos: 1, 4, 9 and 10) can be obtained through NREGA. The remaining amount of Rs 72,804 or € 1,213 has to be sourced through the forward sale of 270 Forestry CERs that will be generated over 20 years to a social entrepreneur or to a special forestry carbon fund set up by several European governments. When validation and registration are completed, we will offer our lCERs at € 4.49

Proving Viability

Seeing the struggle of Coolie families to raise trees on their own with little success, a rich friend and benefactor of the Coolie Sangha gave them moneys to undertake a pilot project on 100 hectares (250 acres). This was for us to be able to demonstrate to the outside world — Validators, fellow NGOs, et al — that dry land horticulture was indeed a viable proposition. 26,825 mango and tamarind saplings were planted and the survival rate is 56%.

Our funding partners, Icco and EED, from the Netherlands and Germany, followed with another sanction for yet another pilot on 200 hectares (500 acres). We are currently implementing this project and have planted 15,952 saplings on 60 hectares. Survival rate is 48%.

We still have some way to go before we finalise the implementation technology for this extremely ambitious, first-in-the-world project.