Transformative Afforestation Project in Ethiopia Listed on Verra 

Date: September 2, 2024

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

We are thrilled to announce that African Bamboo’s afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation(ARR) carbon project has been officially listed on Verra, marking a significant step forward in our efforts to enhance environmental sustainability and support rural highland communities in Ethiopia.

Khalid Duri, founder and CEO said:

 “This listing on Verra is the culmination of more than a year of work with contributions from a large team spanning four continents. African Bamboo is proud to pioneer Ethiopia’s first listing on Verra — an important standard bearer for certifying that projects such as our Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation activities in the Oromia and Sidama regions of Ethiopia meet a high social and environmental impact.”

This groundbreaking project by African Bamboo focuses on planting Yushania alpina(highland bamboo) along with native indigenous species to create dynamic agroforests across the tropical Afromontane highland ecosystems. By implementing afforestation activities over an initial 20 hectares, the project will expand across 12,120 hectares to restore degraded and deforested lands while providing essential ecosystem services such as increased climate resilience, soil stability, and water flow regulation.

Khalid Noted: “African countries are disproportionately vulnerable to the climate crisis. In response, we’ve seen ambitious plans emerge from the continent, such as the Africa Adaptation Initiative and Agenda 2063, aligned with the Paris Agreement. However, a significant adaptation finance gap remains. Our agroforestry project bridges this gap by enhancing community resilience and providing a decarbonization pathway for the private sector through investments in adaptation and mitigation projects. I’m proud that our project plays a vital role in supporting the Africa Carbon Market Initiative’s goal of producing 300 million carbon credits annually by 2030.“

The project aims to generate carbon credits under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), with an expected reduction of 7,259,698 tCO2eq over a 30-year crediting period, averaging 241,990 tCO2eq in annual emissions reductions. 

Impact Beyond Carbon Sequestration

Rania Duri, Deputy General Manager: “Ethiopia has an abundantly available renewable resource of bamboo. Through sustainable agroforest practices and industrialization of tropical bamboo fiber products that meet global market standards, we are enabling ecosystems across the value chain, contributing to job impact in the hundreds of thousands, and significantly contributing to the local economy.”

African Bamboo manages bamboo forests in a socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable manner focusing on activities aimed at achieving the following objectives: 

• Ecosystem Services: 

Cultivating native highland bamboo and other indigenous tree species will enhance soil fertility, improve productivity, and contribute to carbon sequestration, which is crucial for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

• Socio-Economic Development: 

The project enhances the socio-economic conditions of local communities, including women and youth, by developing value chain services for bamboo, sericulture, and apiculture, creating sustainable livelihoods and economic opportunities through carbon finance.

• Sustainable Management Practices: 

The project will implement best practices to ensure tree species’ proper growth and maintenance, fostering long-term ecological health.

African Bamboo has made significant strides in establishing community-led agroforestry operations in Afromontane highlands, incorporating 3,000 smallholder farmers into 31 cooperatives (COOPs) and 68 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) within its forest-to-market value chain. This value chain is poised to unlock an array of employment pathways in Ethiopia, generating 69,000 biochar jobs, 33,000 transport jobs, 21,000 harvesting jobs, 4,000 fostering jobs, 139,000 planting and aftercare jobs, 22,000 improvement jobs, 6,000 bamboo processing jobs, 10,000 MRV (Measurement, Reporting, and Verification) jobs, and 350,000 sericulture jobs.

Samuel Rosmarin, Chief Investment and Corporate Development Officer:  “Listing on Verra is an important milestone toward attracting climate finance for Ethiopia. Climate finance projects like our ARR project can crowd in essential financing to launch investments in agro-forestry and manufacturing that will generate critical foreign currency, jobs, and ecosystem restoration. East Africa needs $900 Billion to finance its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) towards the Paris Agreement. We hope this listing will inspire other developers and financiers to invest in carbon-reducing projects in the region.”

The certification by Verra underscores the project’s potential impact, paving the way for further investments in sustainable land management and climate resilience initiatives.

Samuel added, “Now that the project is listed on Verra, we will focus on scaling up operations and expanding the project. For this, the company will continue to engage with international partners to unlock investment to ensure the project’s success and impact.”

African Bamboo invites stakeholders, environmental advocates, the international community, and the Government of Ethiopia to support our mission to create lasting positive change for both the environment and local communities.

About African Bamboo

African Bamboo is a forest-to-market business operating in Ethiopia and the Netherlands. By integrating agroforestry practices, vocational education, MSME development, robust digital platforms, and carbon credits certification, the partnership aims to foster a sustainable and inclusive transformation of the Ethiopian rural agroforest economy. 

About Verra

Founded in 2007, Verra is a non-profit corporation that now manages the world’s leading voluntary carbon markets program, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, that builds standards for diverse activities such as reducing deforestation, improving agricultural practices, addressing plastic waste, and to achieving gender equality to certify that these activities achieve measurable high-integrity outcomes.

FAQ

Learn more:

For further details about the project, please contact: