Past Iran’s eastern city of Birjand and towards the Afghan border, live Fatomeh Nesam Hosseini and her family.  They live in a simple mud brick house in the tiny village of Hemmatabad, a village made up of about 50 families.  It is surrounded by dryland that do not encourage much plant life; let alone support much agricultural crops.  Life here would normally be extremely difficult, but now, with the help of a UNDP sponsored project, there is a ray of hope for Fatomeh and her family.The Carbon Sequestration in the Desertified Dryland of Hosseinabad Project (CSP) was brought to life in 2003 through the joint efforts of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Environment Fund (GEF) and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). The CSP is a unique project.  It takes a holistic approach to achieving its goal, sequestering carbon by protecting the environmental integrity of the rangelands of Hosseinabad and the livelihoods of its inhabitants; people like Fatomeh.

The dryland where the CSP focuses its efforts is suffering from increased desertification.  More and more of the once vegetated land is becoming barren and bare.  This loss of vegetation not only leads to desertification, but also contributes to global climate change because of the decreased capacity of the environment to absorb carbon in the atmosphere.  When the architects of the CSP realized the problem, they aimed to address it through an innovative approach: social mobilization.  Instead of taking the traditional top-down approach and imposing environmental mechanisms on the local people, they worked to “harness the dormant potential and the willingness of people to help themselves”.  In this way, the project kicked off in the belief that the fight against desertification is fundamentally a fight against poverty.

The CSP quickly set out to identify key causes of not only desertification but also poverty in order to achieve the Project’s objective.  One simple solution was the introduction of gas tanoor.  Tanoor are traditional ovens used to prepare bread, a staple food in Iran.  They are fuelled by wood; however, in the rangelands, the daily use of wood to fuel the tanoor was leading to the destruction of precious vegetation.  This was becoming a major cause of the desertification of the drylands.  The Sequestration Project, therefore, worked to introduce smaller gas fuelled tanoors that could be used by each family to prepare bread.  This also had the bonus of granting the villagers, particularly women and children, more time to use on productive activities instead of having to roam the dryland in search of firewood.  As a result of this initiative, over the last six years, the CSP has been able to reduce the consumption of firewood by local communities by 80.6%.

The Project also introduced microfinance schemes in various villages in the area, including Fatomeh’s village of Hemmatabad, to alleviate poverty in line with the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1.  By doing this, it was hoped that alternative livelihoods would be created, thus alleviating the pressure on the dryland and leaving them to sequester carbon.  As part of the microfinance scheme, Village Development Groups (VDGs) were established to distribute and monitor the repayment of micro loans to people in each village.  These VDGs are unique, because they are entirely made up of the local people.  In this way, communities are given the opportunity to not only receive funds, but also personally take control of their own futures.

When the concept was first introduced, many locals were very skeptical; this was something completely new.  Now, six years on, the VDGs have become a great success and have grass-root support.  Many are self-sustaining and no longer require as much assistance from the CSP by way of seed capital.

“I was very skeptical when the idea was first introduced,” says Fatomeh. “This was a totally new concept and I didn’t think we needed it.” Now Fatomeh is a strong supporter of the VDGs and is the secretary of her local group, Guruhe Zanane Tose Esteghlal [Esteqlal Women’s Development Group].

The VDGs work by taking a loan request from a member.  The request is then considered by the VDG and a supervisory committee, and if approved, a loan of between IRR 1,500,000-3,000,000 (approximately USD$150-$300) is given to the member.  The VDG and the member then decide how and when repayments will be made, thus ensuring both the borrower and the VDG are aware of each other’s constraints.  Once loans are repaid, usually a year later, the member can apply for further credit.

The success of the scheme is self-evident.  Borrowers, who previously struggled to muster savings let alone a formal bank loan, now all have healthy savings accounts and can even give out loans to members of the group.  Also, borrowers who previously struggled to pay back their loans in IRR 500 (USD$0.05) installments now make repayments of IRR 5,000-150,000 (USD$0.50-USD$1.50) at each VDG meeting.“Previously we had to go all the way into the city to get a loan,” says Parvaresh Semi Mohtaram, Fatomeh’s husband. “There, we would have to wait in lines and fill out countless forms.  If they even considered us credit-worthy we would have to wait up to three months in order to get a loan.  Now we can just apply for one right here, have the application considered by people who know us and receive the money straight away.”

Ayub Hosseini is the President of a second VDG in Hemmatabad called Guruhe Hemmate Rustaye Hemmatabad [Hemmat Group of Hemmatabad Village]. “We give loans for a range of projects including purchasing sheep and goats, and weaving carpets.”

Another villager, Ali Hosseini heads the VDG in Tutak and has used the guidance provided by the Project staff to start an egg farm.  “The project suggested we try a chicken egg farm,” says Ali. “It seems to be working, but if it doesn’t, we can also try ostrich, cattle or camel farming.”

In order to directly address the problem of desertification, the CSP has introduced another ingenious solution.  They have created a large-scale vegetation nursery in the area.  What makes it unique is that the nurseries are staffed and managed by local people; the project staff only provide minimal oversight.  Once the plants are mature, the locals are paid to plant the shrubs in the affected dryland.  So far, 13,572 hectares of dryland have been successfully rehabilitated and a locally adjusted model for carbon sequestration has been developed.

“It is the local people who decide which plants we produce,” says National Project Manager (NPM) for the CSP, Mr. Ali Reza Yari. “Since they are involved in every stage of the rehabilitation process, they understand the importance of the plants and do more to ensure their survival.”

“We have now made moves to have mini-nurseries created in each village,” adds Mr. Yari.  “This way the process will be totally localised, and by next year, we hope that there will be no need for a large nursery site.”

In order to measure the success of the CSP and the levels of carbon being sequestered, the University of Birjand has been measuring carbon levels in that project area’s plant-life.  Their studies show that as the reintroduced plants grow, they have been sequestering carbon from the atmosphere as hoped.

The first phase of the project had the humble budget of US$1.8million, which was jointly contributed to by the Government, the UNDP and GEF.  Over the six years of its operation, the CSP has shown that with some assistance, local communities are able successfully and cost-effectively restore and manage degraded environments while improving their own livelihoods.  It also demonstrated that there is a link between environmental degradation and poverty, and that both can be addressed through the participation of local communities and stakeholders.

Given the success of the CSP, the Government and the UNDP have now agreed to jointly contribute US$2.1million for a second phase of the CSP so the project can be extended for another five years.  The second phase of the project seeks to build on the successes of the past six years by strengthening the processes developed and expanding the CSP project area.  It is also hoped that local communities will be able to assume responsibility and ownership for the restoration, conservation and sustainable use of the dryland.

On many accounts the CSP is a success. At a local level the rehabilitation of the dryland and provision of new financial tools has helped fight the poverty in the local villages and slowly improve their quality of life.  On a national perspective, it has helped provide a model for effectively preventing the desertification of rangelands of Iran.  And from a global standpoint, the CSP has shown that local communities can help in the international efforts to combat climate change by rehabilitating dryland ecosystems that potentially play a significant role in absorbing atmospheric carbon.

For more information on carbon sequestration project, please click here.